Lady Ektibar
by Beringae
Summary: Five years have passed since Jack and Sophia's parting, and to salvage their relationship they will have to overcome the most difficult challenge of their history: healing. The sequel to The Fortunes of Ektibar.
1. Prologue

Prologue

-

Jack lies face down in a black cell where they dropped him. Blood gushes from a wound on his cheek and his tongue tastes sickly sweet with the scent of it. He squeezes the broken shards of bone in his wrist with the arm that still moves. Pain keeps him from loosing all of his senses. Time has no meaning. The ticking of a clock. The path of the sun. He never sees the sun anymore.

They haven't fed him. If he falls asleep he's afraid he won't wake up.

Death is just the next footstep.

Eventually everything dies. Even stone.

Tiny grains of sand watching the water as it washes them away.

A month. Years. Jack doesn't know. In the cell there is no sanity.

He has a lot of time to think.

The bars of his cage cast blue shadows across the floor like imperfect stripes in marble. Ants scurry along the cracks in the stone floor. His eyes feel sluggish. It hurts to breathe. In and out.

Eventually everything dies.

His thoughts and memories are simple, confused.

He has a lot of time to think.

He mistakes her for meaningless women but her face still haunts him.

Death is just the next footstep.

Tomorrow or the next day they will decide that it is his time to die and someone will pump a bullet into his forehead and he'll smile. The pain will end and he won't have to remember her anymore.

He hears empty footsteps coming down the hall.

He is the only prisoner.

He sees the barrel of a gun.

-

Then, Sophia woke up screaming.

-

**A/N: **I'm baaaack. Finally got around to the damn sequel. How's this for a short start?

Wow. . . I wrote this after reading Fight Club. I see its darkness has influenced me.

I know that not everyone approved of the way I ended the story (some people were downright insulting, mostly in e-mails). I needed to do something different, something to surprise people and make them want to keep reading. If I had ended with Jack and Sophia together, what would be the point of continuing to read? The story would have been tired. I've read so many sequels that are so alike to the first story that I confuse the two, and then simply quit reading. There are countless POTC fics in which everyone lives happily ever after and everything ends up perfectly. It's old. It's redundant. It's overdone. The ending of TFOE is more realistic (for fan fiction), I think, and it leaves things open and left un-said.

I realize that the ending was abrupt. It always is, in those terrible tragedies. Think of Romeo and Juliet, although I would never compare my juvenile attempts at writing to Mr. Shakespeare's. The fate of Jack and Sophia may have even seemed hasty, but I can assure you that I had this planned from the beginning. Things were never going to simply "work out," unfortunately.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain to those of you who were disappointed. You also must remember that this is a _sequel. _We could very easily have a happy ending after all, finally.

I don't know how quickly the chapters will come at this point. I have a lot of work this year so it may be a bit slow.

You may want to pay attention to this. Some time I might post the epilogue (already written) to TFOE. It's good and I feel like sharing with more people than those who answered my trivia. Also, check out my new mini-fic, Italian Oil Painting. It's written in a very stylized fashion and is pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. Hmm. This is a long Author's Note. I think I'll shut up now.


	2. Past, Present, and Pain

Chapter: Past, Present, and Pain

-

_And now you come to me—women with hands and feet as soft as a queen's, with more cooking pots than you need, so safe in childbed and so free with your tongues. You come hungry for the story that was lost, you crave words to fill the great silence that swallowed me, and my mothers, and my grandmothers before them._

_-- The Red Tent, Anita Diamant_

-

It seemed Sophia could not slow her heart for hours after that dream. She lay in bed, sweat glistening at her brow, and tried to forget the image of Jack, her Jack, helpless. Jack was never helpless.

She'd dreamt of similar things before. Jack dying in a terrible accident, his ship finally failing him, an opponent killing him in a hastily planned duel. But never before had a nightmare affected her so. It _wasn't _a nightmare. It was real.

-

After scarcely an hour or two of more sleep, Sophia awoke to the serenade of music from downstairs. She slipped on a robe and padded down the great, empty staircase. Elizabeth was clunking merrily away at the new harpsichord Sophia's parents had given her for her twentieth birthday just three weeks before.

Sophia new absolutely nothing about music and had no idea where or from whom Elizabeth had acquired the talent. The entire Cuthburt family was astoundingly tone-deaf, but, apparently, the girl excelled in the study of this particular instrument.

The music reverberated throughout the hollow house in waves. It was their last day here. After five years in these terrible rooms, this place that reminded her of her old life, her old self, she had had enough. Tomorrow they would move to a smaller, more modest home in a less extravagant division of Port Royal.

Elizabeth finished her piece with flourish and smiled at her cousin. "What do you think, Sophia?"

Sophia glanced at her. Elizabeth had lost none of her beauty in these five years but her eyes had grown hard. No man could keep her, although they tried with astonishing persistency. Her rape, it seemed, had put her off the opposite sex for the time being.

"It's lovely," Sophia murmured distractedly, and drifted off to the kitchen to tell the cook to make something for breakfast. Elizabeth took no notice. She was quite used to her cousin's preoccupied demeanor.

-

_Sophia had not ventured from her bed in a week. She'd come home, tears streaked down her face, blotching the pale hue of her skin an ugly red. Without a word she had gone to her room and stripped naked and climbed into her bed. Elizabeth and Charlotte tried everything but she just turned her back to them._

_Now she had a fever. Three days of sickness that had not even tapped the pain she felt inside. She had dreams at night that rendered her exhausted and left her screaming when she woke. _

_Elizabeth stood next to Sophia's bed and watched her cousin, stricken with nightmares, plead into a pillow that was saturated with sweat and tears. _

"_No. . . I have to leave, Jack. I can't stay. I can't. I'm a fool. I'm sorry. Don't leave me. . ." _

_Elizabeth, tears brimming in her eyes as she sympathized with Sophia's pain, placed a hand across her cousin's burning forehead. Sophia's eyes, hazy with sickness, snapped open._

"_Has he come yet, Elizabeth? Is he here?" She asked with a voice that was high and hopeful as a child's. _

"_No. No, Sophia, he hasn't."_

_-_

Sophia did not remember that she had been ill. She did not remember anything of the month after she had ruined everything. She had been a simpleton to believe that one dream, a stupid, insignificant dream, could dictate the future. She knew now from experience that dreams were meaningless and played with the mind like a cat with a ball of yarn. She was a fool and everyday it haunted her with the knowledge that she would never find the one she loved.

She'd tried, though. She'd sent letters to anywhere she ever remembered him talking about. Nassau, Ayuda, Tortuga. Everywhere.

_James is dead. Tell Captain Jack Sparrow that James Norrington is dead and I am free. _

The only response she had received was a hastily scrawled note from Nellie, saying matter-of-factly that she had not seen the captain of the Black Pearl in some time.

Sophia would have gotten on a ship and gone to search in a moment if she did not think that it would only break her heart further when she failed.

-

The house was bustling now, a stark contrast to the empty, hopeless vacancy that it had been the day before. Everyone was moving, hauling furniture and other belongings into the two rented carriages that stood outside. Today they were escaping from this dreadful house.

Thankfully, Sophia had gotten rid of many of the various items that had been lying about the house after she let most of the staff go. Now there was only Charlotte, Elizabeth and she.

Will and the children had come to help. Little Elizabeth—it was somewhat confusing having two Elizabeths running around—was now six and a complete and utter ball of energy. Her siblings, Jack and Arabella, were just as excited as their sister but had enough dignity as preteens to conceal it. Sophia smiled faintly as she heard their little feet clomping about upstairs and imagined that she would think nothing of it if she had had children. If she could have children.

Will and Sophia had become great friends over the years. They both had experienced a great sadness, although the reason for Sophia's was more of a mystery.

-

"_And then the bloody man turned the boat upside down and we walked _underneath _the water! I was so surprised I couldn't talk for several minutes," Will chuckled, reaching for another biscuit as Sophia sipped her tea and managed scarcely a smile. Will, oblivious, continued. "I'm sure you have thousands more stories about Jack than I, Sophia."_

_Sophia shrugged and set her tea down to pull little Elizabeth on to her lap, despite the persistent wriggling of the girl's three-year-old body. Sophia had become somewhat of a surrogate mother to the children during the past years since her return._

"_To be completely honest it is all a bit of a blur, Will," she lied, "I don't remember many specific stories."_

"_Bollocks, Sophia," Will stated, matter-of-factly, once Elizabeth had squirmed away to play with her sister. "Jack's not an easy man to forget." _

_Sophia's serene expression faltered. "I prefer not to reminisce about such things."_

_Will frowned, his sweet face displaying utter concern for his friend. He had suspected something had happened between Sophia and Jack, and from the look in Sophia's eyes it had not been pleasant. "Christ, Sophia. What did he do to you?"_

_Sophia stared at him for several moments before abruptly spouting forth a stream of laughter. "Don't be an idiot, Will. Nothing like that!" Once her mirth had been repressed into intermittent chuckles she spoke again. "Did you think he'd raped me or something of the sort? Honestly!"_

_Will hushed her; the children were in the next room. "Of course not! Jack would never do that. I just. . ." _

_Sophia waved a hand in dismissal. "He was as much as a gentleman as he is able. My time on the Black Pearl was. . . interesting." She picked up her tea again and raised it to her lips to mask the sadness that lay like an open wound on her face. "But it's behind me now."_

_-_

Sophia wiped the dust from her hands as she gazed with evident satisfaction at her newly decorated room. It was small, as was the house, but that suited her wonderfully. She had never fully gotten used to the expansive space in the old house after living on a cramped ship for so long.

The bed stood in the corner, facing the door, for she superstitiously believed that it was not one's best interest to have one's back towards the entrance while in bed. There was a window and a dresser beneath it. A mirror hung on the wall above the vanity. Sophia sat on the cushioned chair and looked at her face in the mirror, streaked with dust.

She was always surprised by her looks these days. Her face was the same. Lips, nose, skin, ears, hair. . . everything was in its place. She'd remained unchanged, save for her eyes. They were closed and crisp as steel. As brittle as frozen glass.

Sophia sighed and went into the privy to wash her face and arms free of grime. The day was late and she took off her work dress and changed into something softer to sleep in.

The nights were the worst. The nights when she remembered everything about him. The expression on his face when she said something that amazed him, the sound of his breathing when she lay awake beside him, the way he moved over her before she closed her eyes and let the pleasure claim her.

Sophia turned her face to the side and looked out the window, her body trembling with what she remembered, her skin crawling with the knowledge that she would never again feel his touch.

Then she let her thoughts stray.

-

_She remembered everything about him and it was torture. She remembered his voice and his body. She remembered his eyes, black as the charred wood that was left in the fireplace every morning. _

_They said that she was broken. They said that she had been tormented painfully, that the vicious scallywags had killed her spirit. Whispers followed her everywhere. She was the widow who had been kidnapped by pirates. She was scandalous. _

_She let them believe what they liked. There was no use attempting to stem rumors that only developed by the hour._

_Many men approached her—courted her, she supposed—in the years after she returned. They wanted to save her, to heal her, to protect her. The sadness and terrible wisdom in her eyes attracted them. She knew she must have seemed very different from the spoiled, bubbly girls they were accustomed to._

_The affection was one-sided. _

She was twenty-nine, now. Five years she'd lived a meaningless life in this town. She was past her prime, past marriageable age. She felt ancient. Her face would have been smooth if she could erase the tenseness from her features, the grief, but she was old by society's standards.

_Sophia did not care much for society's standards anymore. It was a useless mold. _

-

She did not see Will again for another week or so until he burst through her door, uncharacteristically anxious, and nearly scared the wits out of Elizabeth. Nowadays the girl was always at her harpsichord and the instrument let out a resounding, off-key chord when she fumbled her notes in surprise.

"Will! What the bloody hell are you doing?" Sophia gasped, rendering Will speechless for only a moment. He had never gotten used to the crass language that her time on the Black Pearl had so graciously bestowed upon her.

"Jack. He's in trouble. I've only just heard," he wheezed, still winded. Sophia's fingertips froze where she had been idly tracing the polished wood of the stair banister.

"What?"

"I overheard two guards speaking. They said that the 'infamous Captain Sparrow' had been caught. He's been in prison for _months_, Sophia. They're holding him in London."

Sophia had stopped listening. She thought only of her dream.

_Jack lies face down in a black cell where they dropped him._

"Oh god. . ." Sophia's weak legs carried her to a chair and she dropped like a woman with the vapors.

"Sophia?"

Sophia covered her face with her hand and tears leaked from between her fingers. Will's voice was very faint as he called her name. She whispered one thing before she stood and turned to climb the long trek of stairs up to her room.

"I saw it."

-

_I was afraid, though, the blame would find a way to stick to them. That's how blame was._

_-- The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd_

-

**A/N**: Bet you didn't see that coming! Well, maybe you did.

I apologize for the wait, but I did warn everyone that chapters might be slow this year. I hope this chapter isn't too confusing. You should be able to figure out where the flashbacks are :). Thanks to everyone who reviewed the prologue, as short as it was.


	3. Floodgates

Chapter: Floodgates

-

_Desire came upon that one in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind._

_-- "Creation Hymn" from the Rig Veda_

-

**London**

"Get up," said the man who was holding a gun to Jack's temple.

Jack glanced at him, a sideways flicker of the eyes that betrayed his interest. It was only after a sharp kick to the ribs that he struggled to his feet, knees shaking with weakness.

The guard led him down the slimy corridor of the prison to another cell and shoved him inside. Jack landed hard on his shoulder with a grunt, before rolling onto his back to grin at the silhouetted man.

"What, not goin' t' kill me yet? Jus' get on with it, will you?" he joked, a valiant effort that seemed more like a desperate plea than a jest. His voice was a raspy whisper. The guard only shut the door behind him with an echoing clang, leaving Jack alone to hallucinate.

In times like these, when he was alone with only the steady drip of stagnant water to track the time, Sophia came to him in fevered dreams. She would touch his forehead with the cool palm of her hand as she had so many times before when he was ill with infection so many years ago, her face a blurry paleness that swam across his eyes. He hated when she appeared because if he tried to touch her she would only disappear.

-

**Port Royal**

Will returned to his house, his mood low. Exhausted, he sank into an armchair, only to be roused once again as a knock sounded at the door. It was Sophia, her face pale and her eyes bright with fervor. "We have to go to London. We have to save him. I can't bear to be here while he might be dying," she said, the sound that rose from her throat croaky from tears that remained unshed.

Will wanted to say that there was a very little chance that Jack was still alive, that they would get there in time. But, as he watched Sophia tremble with fear, he had not the will to finally break her. "Alright. We'll go," he whispered, taking her hand and drawing her towards a chair, for he could see, even through the thick folds of her skirt, that her legs were quivering.

The minute she sat the floodgates broke down. Tears flowed as she imaged Jack's pain, his desperation as he was finally contained. His precious freedom was gone.

Will watched her mutely, watched the horror that passed over her face. "You loved him, didn't you? Sophia?"

This only brought her to further tears. Cradling her face in her hands, she nodded. Will sighed, for he assumed that her love had not been returned. Jack was not the sort of person to fall in love.

-

"Where are you going?" Elizabeth asked, concerned, as Sophia packed clothes and toiletries carefully into her trunk. "Does it have something to do with Captain Sparrow?" Sophia only nodded, sorting through the various luxuriously patterned dresses to find a solitary pair of breeches and a plain white shirt.

"Well, don't expect me to sit here and wait like a simpering housewife," Elizabeth snapped smartly, frowning. "How on earth are you going to get him out of prison? Break through the wall?"

Sophia reached her entire arm into the armoire, fingers scrabbling at the back for a dress that she had only worn once before in her life. With a grunt, she pulled it out. Elizabeth gasped.

The dress was exquisite. It was a dark, forest green with an ornate black lining and embroidering. The neck was cut extremely low and would bear most of the wearer's shoulders, the skirt was full, and it was tailored to have a waist that would require a tremendously tight corset. "Where did you get that?" Elizabeth wondered, aghast that her simple cousin would own such a beautiful garment. "I've never seen you wear it."

"I wore it for my wedding reception. It had dastardly consequences," Sophia admitted, her voice strangely expressionless. "I was dead on my feet from dancing with so many men afterwards."

Elizabeth grinned. "Why would you need to take it?"

Sophia cast Elizabeth a sly smirk over her shoulder, although her eyes were troubled with thoughts of her imprisoned lover; she would not be content until they found him. "We are assuming that the guard is of the male gender. This may help if I need to convince him to allow me to visit a certain someone."

-

They were sailing out of the port three days later, the bow of their newly leased ship, _The Enchantments_, cutting through the ocean as smoothly as any Sophia had yet seen. She hadn't asked Will where or from whom he acquired the vessel; she only provided the money. She had been fortunate when it came to finances in the past years. To add to the large sum that James had left her in his will she had managed what little money she had smartly and multiplied it ten-fold.

Sophia had missed being on a ship more than she realized. To feel the salt-wind, the ship moving beneath her again, was bliss. She could close her eyes and actually breathe freely for the first time in years. She could imagine that she was back on _The Black Pearl_ with Jack.

Her cabin was small, but then again everything was small on a ship. She had forgotten how comfortingly cramped everything was at sea. She would lie on the bed and feel the ocean rocking beneath her and smile, but then thoughts of Jack would plague her again and ruin her happiness. How could she be content while he was in so much pain? She hated herself for it.

The picture of him that she held in her mind had not diminished in its clarity, despite the time that had passed. She remembered him. She remembered everything.

-

Sophia was more than slightly amused at the shocked expressions of the hired crew when she emerged from her cabin the next day in her sailing clothes. Sophia only eyed them disapprovingly. After all, if they've never seen a woman in men's clothes they were certainly not going to be able to handle Jack's outlandish manner if they found him.

_When_ they found him.

Once she swung up into the riggings as if she had been raised on a ship, though, they quickly remembered that they too had work to do and ignored her. It took Will, on the other had, far more time to become accustomed to the "new" Sophia.

"Mother of God, Sophia! What are you doing up there?" He shouted, a hint of panic laced into his words.

Sophia grinned down at him as she sat daintily on a twisted rope twenty feet above his head. "Fixing the riggings. They're in rather terrible shape, I'm afraid."

Will only shook his head and sighed. "Please don't tell me that Jack made you work as an actual sailor."

Sophia quickly scampered up to the crow's nest and leaned over the edge, finding the horrified look on Will's face quite hilarious. "Of course he didn't _make _me! What is one supposed to do on a ship for a year? I couldn't very well sit around and do nothing, could I?"

-

Thankfully, the remainder of the trip passed without incident. Sophia and Will further perfected their plan to free Jack. However, the dawning fact that Jack may not be alive spread a darkness over Sophia that rendered her unaware of all else. Being on a ship no longer gave her happiness. It had been a month at sea; each day caused Jack more pain and brought him closer to death, she was sure.

But now, as the entrance to the Thames River loomed heavily on the shores of Britain, Sophia's stomach tightened with nerves. It was for Jack, she reminded herself. Nothing else mattered.

Will stood beside her, watching as _The Enchantments _traveled from salt water to fresh, from open sea to the land of Sophia's birth. Sophia had come to Port Royal when she was merely five and did not remember the busy streets of London, save for cloudy memory of dirt and smoke and the lazy traverse of the Thames as it collected sewage and waste from the city.

They docked easily considering the sheer number of other ships, both privately owned and otherwise. Sophia could not help being amazed at the amount of people; she had spent a long time at Port Royal, a town miniscule in comparison to the breathing mass that was London.

Before they departed from the ship, Sophia needed to change from her sailing clothes. She would have been perfectly comfortable stalking about London in breeches and a plain white shirt, but how she looked was a necessary part of their plan to free Jack.

She enlisted the assistance of Elizabeth in order to don her elaborate dress. The young girl seemed to enjoy torturing her cousin with the painful but necessary tightening of the corset a little to thoroughly, however, for Sophia's liking.

Elizabeth grinned as she pulled the laces of the corset with a sharp jerk. "Hold onto the bedpost and breathe in," she instructed, twisting her fingers around the laces and preparing to dig her heels in and heave again.

"But I _can't _breathe at all as it is!" Nonetheless, Sophia did as she was told and let out a groan as her ribs came even closer to collapse. Eventually they succeeded and the dazzling green dress slipped over Sophia's body with ease. Elizabeth shoved a pair of black, heeled shoes onto her feet and, after her hair was trussed and twisted into a complex bunch of shiny dark curls, the look was completed.

Elizabeth let out a sigh. "You look perfect, Sophia. Gorgeous," she stated proudly.

"I should certainly hope so, after all of that trouble. Please do remind me to never dress up like this again," Sophia snapped, hiking her skirts up to her knees and stalking out of the door. She had to stop after ten feet to catch her breath. After that she walked more slowly.

-

After nearly shocking Will off of his feet, for he had never before seen Sophia dressed as she was, they were on their way, sans Elizabeth. Sophia had firmly refused her requests to accompany them.

The streets of London were as busy as any Sophia had seen. It seemed thousands of people stalked by them within the minute, each worrying about some inconsequential problem in his or her life. And it was _freezing. _Sophia literally could not feel her fingers, despite the gloves that circled them.

"Let's hurry up and leave this place as soon as possible, Will. It's dreadful," she hissed through chattering teeth, her breath hanging like an icy veil over her face as she watched several bare-footed children scamper across their path, feet black with cold, no doubt looking for enough food to last them the day. Will nodded his affirmation.

Will had discovered through lengthy questioning in Port Royal that Jack was being held in a prison on Silver Street, and the walk there seemed like an entire epoch to Sophia. Despite the short distance from the Thames, each step felt as if it was being laden down by lead on the sole of each boot, and her legs were aching by the time they arrived. In later thoughts she would reason that it was merely the cold, but at the time the nervousness that shot through her blood was the cause, she knew.

-

"Excuse us, sir. Is there a Jack Sparrow imprisoned here?" Will asked the guard, a large chap with a bushy head of blond hair, his voice sure and businesslike. Sophia stood behind him, quietly dabbing tears that spilled easily over here eyelashes. She only had to think of the death of her lover to induce them, and fortunately that could assist them in their plan.

"Aye," the guard clipped. "No visitors."

_He's alive. They haven't hung him. Oh thank God. _

Sophia's legs nearly failed her and she had to grab hold of Will's shirt to keep herself from falling. The tears that flowed from her eyes now were not artificial, and relief that flooded through her was instantaneous. "He's not dead?"

The guard shook his head. "Not yet."

"We are family. Will you still not allow us to see him?" Will pressed on. Sophia could hear relief, the same emotion that sent her reeling, in his voice.

"'Fraid not, sir," the guard said. This was Sophia's cue. It took her a moment to remember what she was supposed to be doing. _Jack was alive. _

With a whimper of sadness, she rushed to the guard's side, clutching herself against his arm. "Oh please, sir, he's my brother! He's not a bad man; he's simply been led astray. I assure you that we will not be more than a moment. We only want to make sure that he is well enough and learn of his future."

Sophia saw the guard's eyes flicker downward to glance at the crease of her bosom that she had innocently positioned in clear view. In order to appeal to his guilt, she briefly considered rambling on as the "proper" ladies seemed to do these days: _how _dare_ you, sir! Why, I never! My dear, I shall swoon!_and soforth.It took her less than a second to think better of it.

She could see now that her simpering advances were breaking through the hard exterior of this nameless guard. "Well. . . I suppose. . ." he ventured.

Sophia beamed. "Oh, _thank _you so much, good sir! You shan't go without reward! The lord remembers deeds such as this," she prattled, doing her best to resemble the picture of virtue.

The guard unlocked the door that led into the cells and gave it a firm shove. They were in, they were close. Sophia felt a tingle over her body as the excitement mounted and her senses became acute with the thrill of their task.

The heavy oaken contraption creaked open and Sophia and Will hurried into the gloom. To their surprise, the guard followed them. "Surely," Will began, "we don't require your aid? The prisoners are locked away, correct?"

"You're not even supposed to be in 'ere," he replied, in a tone that suggested that they not push their luck. Sophia noticed how his eyes lingered on her exposed shoulders and pinched waist as she turned and decided that his distraction would be anything but hindering, seeing as they would have to find a new way to free Jack. Simply using Will's knowledge of cell latches would not help them anymore. How were they going to do it? Sophia, her breath halting in fear, glanced at Will and saw his eyes roving around their surroundings, searching for something, anything, that could help them free Jack. What was there in this barren place, this purgatory of sin that reeked of human waste and torture? Sophia saw nothing.

They continued down the narrow corridor and Sophia tried to ignore the groaning prisoners jailed on either side of her. The cells were small and the iron bars cast eerie stripes of shadow across the stone. Sophia felt a lead ball sinking into the pit of her stomach as they walked, their footsteps echoing like solitary gunshots at a frozen lake.

"'Ere y'are. Jack Sparrow, the great Captain of the dreaded Black Pearl," the guard announced mockingly; to him, Jack held no real significance in history. He was just another imprisoned man who could have been a great outlaw but was not gifted enough to escape the authorities. He was nothing.

Her heart beating against her corseted ribs, Sophia peered through the dim. She saw naught but a pile of clothes and a bony, misshapen hand that protruded from them. As if from outside her body, Sophia recognized the artistic beauty that hand must have once held before it was broken and abused, recognized it as Jack's despite the absence of the rings that she had never before seen him without. They must have taken everything that was dear to him.

Sophia grasped hold of the iron bars with both hands and pressed her face against them, feeling the coldness against her forehead, and closed her eyes to inhale deeply three times, willing her heart to slow and let her think. She could not rid the vision of that bony, wasted hand from her memory.

Will was just about to touch her shoulder, to assure himself that she had not lost all consciousness against those restricting bars, when she spoke.

"That's him. That's Jack."

Her eyes were so blank and her voice so troubled that both men looked at her as if she was insane. It was not unlikely, Will thought, that her reason could finally have splintered and the raw pain that he knew she was experiencing would be expressed in the form of madness. But no, she simply stood there, and Will could almost see her mind working, using this time to her advantage.

Sophia began to murmur seven words, over and over. "What has he done to deserve this?"

-

_We laugh about it on the occasions she is allowed to visit: how life provides the most bizarre of endings to one's story._

_-- The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant_

-

**Author's Note**: Wow. That did take a long while, didn't it? I apologize for that, but I did get it done just in time (barely) for Christmas. Nevertheless, two months is shameful. I hope that never happens again. I guess the combination of school, soccer, etc. etc. etc. just finally caught up with me. There's not really any excuse.

Anyway, I'm not satisfied with this chapter at all, but I needed to get something out there. I'll probably replace this with a better example of writing when I have the time. I didn't want to draw out Will and Sophia's journey too much because that is not truly the focus of this fic, but I think I rushed it. I hope that Sophia's new strength and daring that she's acquired in the five or so years since TFOE is apparent.

Talk to you all soon again, I hope. Now, I'm afraid, I am going to bed.


	4. Salvage

Chapter: Salvage

-

_Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them. This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before. You may imagine, from other stories you've read, that you know it well, but those stories flattered you, welcoming you as a friend, treating you as if you belonged._

_-- The Crimson Petal and the White, Michael Faber_

-

"What has he done to deserve this?"

Sophia stared through the gloom at the formless huddle in the prison cell that was Jack. After a seemingly infinite length of time, she turned around to face Will and the nameless guard, her eyes glazed over, irises indistinct against a black pupil. With the assistance of a deep breath, she asked, "Will he not wake? Will he not speak to us?"

Her question remained unanswered. Intently, she stared at Will over the guard's shoulder. How could they possibly break Jack out of jail, now that the guard had decided chaperone their visit? Sophia saw Will thinking, his eyes sweeping around the room for what must have been the twentieth time, searching for a solution. Sophia let out an exasperated sigh. They needed to distract the guard for long enough to render him helpless to prevent them.

Biting her lower lip, Sophia shot Will a meaningful glance. _Come on, Will. Play along with me, _she thought, hoping that he would get the idea once she acted. And act she did.

"You. . ." Sophia began, her voice breathy and seductive as she spoke to the guard, "must be very brave to keep all of these terrible prisoners in check." The guard's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair as Sophia continued, improvising completely by her instincts what she thought might appeal to this man's idea of a perfect, willing woman. "I think I should like. . ." Halting mid-word, Sophia threw herself towards him, wrapping her arms around the guard's neck and kissing him hard on the mouth. He didn't move for a moment while her lips mashed messily into his, but it didn't take him long to respond and squeeze her tightly corseted torso to his. Sophia had to quell a groan of revulsion as he thrust his tongue into her mouth. _Never mind. Get down to business, _she lectured to herself.

With a sly sidestep she positioned their bodies so that they were perpendicular to the bars of Jack's cell. It would be so _easy _for Will to give the guard's head a little shove into the metal bars. _So _easy.

_Come on, Will._

It didn't take him long to figure it out. Sophia only had to endure several more seconds of the guard's disgusting tongue in her mouth before she felt the his body jerk and his lips leave hers as Will elbowed the side of his head into the bars. The guard fell in a limp heap to the stone ground, and Sophia stepped daintily away from his unconscious body.

Will stared at her, his eyes wide. Sophia spit with a repulsed "ugh" onto the ground. "I will _never _do that again," she remarked, her forehead wrinkled as she spit again to rid her mouth of the guard's sour, alcohol soaked taste.

Will was speechless. He had never before seen a woman act as brashly as Sophia had just moments before. "Y-You. . . you. . . what. . ."

Sophia ignored him and bent down to retrieve the ring of keys that hung, defeated, from the guard's belt. Her breath shallow, she tried each one on Jack's door until, finally, the largest iron key slid into the latch. With a flick of her wrist, she turned it and the door swung open while an eerie creak echoed throughout the prison. They were very lucky that it was late and most of the other prisoners were asleep, otherwise Sophia assumed that most of them would have made a fuss.

With Will following, Sophia stepped into the cell. Her hands were trembling but she buried them in the folds of her skirts to mask her blatant fear. She felt like simply dropping to the ground, curling up, and crying out of desperation and terror. But she had to be strong now. Here there was no reason for useless histrionics.

As the duo approached Jack, Sophia could finally see his face, cloaked by darkness though it was. She drew in a breath so sharp that Will glanced at her, alarmed.

He was very thin, but the bruises and swelling on his face made his cheeks seem puffy. His left eye was swollen shut, black and shiny. His lips were split in several places and blood coated the majority of his lower face. One sliver-thin slice across his left cheekbone had crusted over with puss and blood, and Sophia was sure his nose was broken.

The only other part of his body that was not veiled by the rags his captors had given him for some meager warmth was his hand. The little finger looked as if it had been dislocated for some time now, the tendons and ligaments stretched beyond repair. His index and middle finger were broken. The nail of his thumb was hanging from his skin by a thread of flesh. Sophia covered her mouth with her hands to stop herself from keening like a mourning widow, and Will just stood beside her, his mouth open and anger sparking in his eyes. After several minutes of shocked horror, Sophia finally stepped forward, her heeled shoes scraping against the grainy stone floor and grasped her skirts in one hand to kneel down.

Jack's right eye snapped open.

Sophia reeled backwards, nearly landing on her rump on the dirty ground. She had fully expected him to be either dead or entirely unconscious, incapable of waking without serious physical pain.

Jack just watched them, silent, as if in a mental stand off with his rescuers. Sophia could see he was alert by the focused quality of his pupils, and yet he did nothing. "Jack?" She breathed, her voice ringing quiet in the darkness, like something soft and clear amidst this hell. Why didn't he do anything? Did he recognize them?

Jack stared at these ghosts of his past life. Couldn't his battered mind spare him the pain of remembering Sophia's face just this once? Remembering took energy, and he had none to spare. He would have moved and swatted at Sophia and Will's images if he didn't know how much it would hurt, just to see them dissipate into mist.

"Go 'way. . . bloody. . . figments," he groaned, his voice so gravelly with thirst that it was almost impossible to understand his words. With a thin moan he rolled over, wincing as his cracked ribs protested violently and rendered him breathless. Thankfully, the images did not follow him. He was left to a dark peace.

Sophia's heart squeezed in her chest when she saw the pain it caused Jack just to move. _Figments? He doesn't think we're real. _Was he mad? Had these months of solitude destroyed his sanity? She could hear Will breathing in sharp gasps behind her. Ignoring the filth on the floor, Sophia shifted her weight to her hip and sat. She reached out, her fingers trembling as her hand hesitated over Jack's shoulder. She felt her sinuses burning with the effort not to cry as she spoke again. "Jack, can you hear me? We're not an illusion."

Once again, Jack remained silent. With a heartbroken sound deep in her throat, Sophia finally touched him, grasping his arm with the gentle span of her palm.

The effect was instantaneous. Jack let out a hoarse cry of surprise and struggled to his feet with the kind of hidden strength in times of extreme pain Sophia had seen only once before, many years ago in the captain's quarters of _The Black Pearl_ when all the world smelt of sickness and this man was dying of a delusional fever. He'd leapt up then, too, sweat running in rivers down his chest and his balance so effected by his fever that he swayed on his feet as if drunk, and Sophia had underestimated his strength. She would not make that same mistake again. She got to her feet as quickly as Jack had and stepped back towards Will, who's body was so tense that Sophia could see the muscles beneath his shirt.

Jack stumbled, cursing in that same gravelly voice that shocked Sophia because she couldn't recognize it, his knees threatening to buckle beneath his weight, but he finally found the support of the back wall, his broken hands splaying out behind him on the cool stone. His muscles screamed in protest to his rapid movement. He looked at them wildly, his hair hanging in mats around his face. His visions never touched him. _Never_. Everything was confusing him: the way the room spun, the two people standing before him, the fact that his own legs would not support him. If Sophia and Will were not hallucinations, then they had to be real.

But that was impossible, wasn't it?

Sophia took a cautious step towards him, her ears buzzing with fear and excitement. Jack just stared at her with the eye that was not swollen shut, his pupil following her movements with surprising accuracy for someone in his state. He was still muttering curses.

"Jack, we've come to rescue you from this place. Don't do anything. . . rash," she cautioned. Jack didn't respond, and Sophia kept moving at a gradual pace until she was standing right next to him. He still looked at her warily. She _couldn't_ be real.

_He needs to be touched_. Sophia slipped off her glove and slowly reached up to Jack's face. She ran her fingertips over his cheek, over the cut that was so badly infected, over his split lip. Jack closed his eyes.

"Oh God. . ." He whispered, and Sophia was relieved to hear his voice sounding like his own. Tears pricked at her eyes as she cupped his face in her hand. "You're real," Jack gasped, his sunken chest heaving with the realization.

Sophia nodded, smiling faintly through her tears. Then, finally spent, Jack collapsed to the floor. Sophia caught him around the middle, despairing at how much it would hurt him and how light he was. Her back arched to support his meager weight. "Will!" She shouted, breaking the man out of his horrified trance. "Help me!" Will rushed to her side and lifted Jack's emaciated form bodily from her arms and set him on his feet. Jack slumped against his rescuers, his chin resting heavily on his chest. "Can you walk?" Sophia asked him.

Jack's shrug was so slight that Sophia could barely see it. "Why not?" He panted quietly as he started to place more of his weight on his feet, but he did it. Despite his pain, he did it.

"Managing alright?" Will questioned, his brow furrowed in concern for his friend as he held him around the waist.

"I always do, Mr. Turner," Jack grunted, offering a pained smile, a mere thinning of the lips. Sophia stiffened slightly as Jack enfolded his arm around her shoulders. Physical contact with this man, however ill he was, still brought back memories.

And so they made their way.

As they passed the unconscious guard Jack glared at him with such vehemence and hatred that Sophia had to actively restrain herself from asking him if this was the man who had tortured him, broken his fingers and beaten him until bruises bloomed like a parody of flowers on his face. Of course it was. Jack's expression answered her questions.

Sophia almost retched, just to rid her mouth of the remains of the guard's filthy taste. Will stared down at him as he lay helpless on the ground and the muscles in his jaw jumped with tension and anger. The trio was silent. Sophia swallowed, and an acute fear that she would suddenly be sick all over herself washed over her. Now was not the time.

As her gaze fell on Jack once more she almost recoiled in surprise. The disgust and fury in his eyes was as sharp as the sword that he usually carried. She'd never seen him look so angry. His pupils burned black with it. An unnerving sense of déjà vu made her vision swim as she remembered Jack at another infuriated moment, one of much more consequence to her.

"_No one. . ._ _no one deserves that."_

"_You bastard."_

And then Will took a pistol from beneath his jacket. Sophia didn't know he even owned a gun and started in surprise when she saw his finger tighten around the trigger. "Where did you get that? Will. . . stop. . ."

A shot rang out.

Will turned to them: Sophia with her wide eyes and a broken Jack Sparrow who looked as if his thirst for revenge was only beginning to lie stagnant. For now.

"This is the last time that anyone is going to harm any friend of mine," Will deadpanned, and both Sophia and Jack knew he meant it.

-

"Set him down here, Will," Sophia whispered, "and try not to wake him. What he needs now is a peaceful sleep."

Will obeyed silently and laid Jack carefully on Sophia's narrow cot. Jack let out a low groan as his damaged body relaxed for the first time in months.

Jack's legs had finally given out halfway back to _The Enchantments_. The walk through the busy streets of London had taken a lot out of him and, frankly, she was surprised he made it as far as he did. So Will had picked him up and carried him the remainder of the way, remarking dryly how, in this instance, it was rather a good thing Jack was so thin. Sophia hadn't answered him.

Now, Sophia sent Will to the galley for some hot water to clean Jack's wounds. It was best to do it while he slept and spare him at least a fraction of the pain. Once Will was gone, Sophia began to remove Jack's clothing.

She was surprised to find him still in possession of the familiar garb he always wore, the strange muddle of cloth, jackets, and jewelry. They were ripped and foul, and right away Sophia decided that Jack needed a new wardrobe. His hair was matted terribly but the trinkets that were so endearing to her remained. Not wanting to move him and risk him waking, Sophia simply cut the ruined clothes off of his body with a large pair of sewing shears. Good God, why were her memories playing tricks on her again?

_"You'll need t' take th' bullet out, love. It's still in there, I can feel it."_

_"A wash with warm water would be my advice, love. 'Course, you could always jus' give me a wee rub on th' back and I'm sure that'd work jus' as well."_

"_Who taught you t' do this?"_

_"I'm going t' cut your bloody throat for wha' you did t' me, you whoring bitch."_

Sophia shook her head clear of memories that had gone hazy with the passing of time. She could hardly place these sudden snippets of conversation in their proper order, much less pinpoint the exact context. With a sigh she finally removed the last of Jack's upper clothing from his feverish body. _Another _bloody fever.

Sophia's hands froze, and the shears dropped from her fingers.

_Jesus._

Jack's chest was horrendously discolored with countless bruises, the majority of which were centered around his ribs, which were entirely too pronounced for Sophia's comfort. He was extraordinarily thin. Various cuts and scraps peppered his skin, most of which were minor but still looked disturbing.

She did not recognize this body as the one that she had known so intimately in times past. It was only when she recognized the jagged scar on his right shoulder, the one that she had helped create with her foolhardy healing tactics, that she assured herself that, yes, this was Jack.

Tearing her bleary eyes away from the destruction of Jack's chest, she focused on removing his breeches. She had no reason to fear Jack's nakedness—God knows she had seen him sans clothes many times before—and when Will arrived he would just have to deal with it.

As she slipped his pants off of his legs her hands brushed over a sizable scab on his thigh. Sizable enough to merit an investigation, at least. Sophia gasped as her fingers traced gently over what she assumed was a recent gunshot wound. She let out a croaky whimper and, defeated, rested her weary head on Jack's injured leg.

"Oh, God. . ."

She didn't have much to cry about, actually. The wound had been taken care of, that much was obvious. It was not infected and healing nicely, although it still must have hurt Jack when he walked. From his inability to walk earlier she had expected a gross, hemorrhaging wound hidden somewhere, rendering him weak and feverish, but there was nothing that serious. She could tell from the bruises that he was bleeding somewhere inside and at least one of his ribs was probably cracked, but it seemed he was in no immediate danger. The fever that made the skin beneath her cheek hot and clammy was likely just a reaction to the starvation, thirst, and exhaustion that he had endured.

And yet she cried.

_She had not been there to help him._

After what seemed like hours of desolation, she sat up and wiped her face clean of tears, although she was sure her face was red and puffy, not that it mattered. Having composed herself once more, noticed Jack had begun to shiver in his unconsciousness, and she pulled the sheets up to his waist.

With flawless timing Will chose this time to enter Sophia's cabin, bearing a massive tub of steaming water. He stopped cold at the sight of Jack's battered chest, but Sophia reassured him, "It's not as bad as it looks, thankfully."

"Really?" Will asked with a deceptively light tone that made Sophia think he didn't quite believe her. It was understandable considering how Jack looked. He set the basin on the floor beside the bed.

"Yes. He's been beaten and they broke his hand quite badly, but that's the worst of it," Sophia said quietly as she picked up one of the rags soaked in the water and began to dab carefully at Jack's lip and cheek. After she had cleaned all the blood from his face he looked much better, despite the bruises that could not be cured with a simple cleansing. While she washed him, Sophia took note of Jack's breathing: it was regular but slightly shallow and pained. His ribs were injured, then.

Sophia finally cleaned all of the crusted blood on his chest from the small lacerations and pulled the sheet down to start on his legs. Will gave a cry of surprise. "He's naked! Christ, Sophia! A woman should not have to. . ."

Sophia interrupted him. Her patience for the night had finally run out. "See a man uncovered? Honestly, Will, how do you suppose I could tend to his wounds with his clothes on?" Will was silent in response to this, his mouth gaping at her in shock. "Try not to be a _complete_ dolt, will you?" She added this purely on principle. Men were such idiots sometimes.

Will didn't question her after that except about where the gunshot in Jack's leg came from. "I don't know. I would guess it was the reason he was caught. Not much else would slow Jack Sparrow down, wouldn't you agree?" Sophia offered with a distracted smile.

"That I would," Will answered.

Working in silence, Sophia felt along Jack's ribs until she felt one give more than it should have. "I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered to him as he jerked in his unconsciousness. Thankfully, that was the only one that did, and with the help of Will she wrapped a tight bandage around Jack's chest to assist in its healing.

Then she turned to his hand.

Hands were very tricky, she had discovered over the years. One had to be extremely careful otherwise it was quite likely that the poor patient would never use his fingers again. She searched through her brain for anything she had acquired in the books she had read over the years that could help her, but there was nothing. With a deep breath, she more closely examined his hand. Thankfully they had left the other one alone; it was only his right that was damaged. And damaged it was, extensively.

By touch she determined that every finger besides his thumb and little finger was broken. Most in more than one place. The thumbnail was torn off, but that was not as serious. A sweat broke out over Jack's body, and Sophia was rather shocked that he hadn't woken. Obviously she was causing him intense pain by simply touching his injury.

If he hadn't woken yet, she was sure that he would when she did what she was about to.

Jack's little finger hung at a strange angle from his hand and Sophia guessed that it had been dislocated for at least several days. This was very unfortunate. Sophia knew from careful research—thankfully after her experience on a pirate ship she had read more books about healing—that whatever tendons and ligaments held the finger to the hand could stretch, and once they did they didn't regain their old shape after the finger had been reset. Sophia was quite sure that Jack would never move this finger again.

And when she reset it it was going to hurt like hell.

_If_ she could reset it.

A shoulder was easy; you just gave it a quick shove and it was back in place. But a hand was delicate. She could very easily break his already dislocated finger.

"Sophia?" Will's voice broke her from her haze of thought.

"Hmm? Oh, right," she mumbled, taking a deep breath and carefully gripping Jack's little finger. She budged it slightly, a mere touch, and despaired to see that it didn't move at all. It was going to take force.

"I don't know if I can do this, Will," she confessed, her voice trembling with fear.

Will's eyes softened with sympathy. "I know it's difficult, Sophia, but you've got to try. Jack will thank you for it when he wakes," he encouraged, his large hand fastening down comfortingly on her shoulder.

With a quick nod, Sophia rallied her courage and grasped Jack's motionless finger. And jerked.

_Pop._

Sophia opened her eyes, not realizing that she had closed them. She got one look at Jack's hand, his little finger back where it was supposed to be, before Jack let out an animalistic holler and sat up in a rush, his eyes wide and frightened as he tried to understand what had caused him so much sudden pain.

"BLOODY HELL, THAT HURTS."

Sophia just sat there, the feeling finally coming back to her limbs as relief washed through her. She did it. She barely heard Will explaining to the shocked Jack, who was cradling his injured hand to his chest, what had happened. Finally sparing a glance at her patient, Sophia saw the glazed look to his eyes and deduced that he was only just lucid.

Will helped Jack lie back down on the cot. His eyes were drooping and his forehead was burning with fever, but the pain in his hand kept him awake.

"Oh Jack. . . I'm sorry. I'm not finished. The bones in your hand have to be set," she explained, her voice very small. She hated causing him so much pain.

Jack's eyes opened wider as he heard her voice. "Sophie?" A pause. "You're here?"

Sophia rose to sit on the bed so that he could see her face and grabbed hold of his good hand, tears now streaming down her face once again. "Yes." She didn't know what to say.

He was slurring now with exhaustion and pain, sweat collecting in beads at his hairline. "'Was so sure I'd never. . . see you again. . ."

Sophia managed a small smile. "I'm here now. I won't leave for a while yet." Her voice cracked with emotion. "Now, go to sleep for a bit, m'love."

And he did.

Brushing tears from her cheeks yet again, she rose after several minutes of motionless silence. "Will, would you mind bringing me several straight bits of wood for splints?" She asked in whispered tones, her energy spent from that brief conversation.

Will brandished three pieces of wood, perfect for their desired use. Sophia thanked him and set to work.

It was actually easier than she had thought it would be, despite the churning in her stomach that she knew would catch up with her eventually. Setting bones was nasty work, but the breaks were clean and no bones had been shattered. She set them by touch and wrapped all three fingers together with a splint each.

Sophia stepped back and sighed. It was over with, for now. She had done her duty. Now she needed sleep.

"You're welcome to my cot, Sophia. I'll sleep on the floor here and look after him in case he wakes during the night," Will offered sweetly, but Sophia shook her head.

"I'd actually prefer to remain here tonight, I think. Thank you, though," she said wearily. Will left with a shrug.

Sophia did not sleep on the floor. Grimacing as her joints creaked with fatigue, she climbed into bed beside Jack, not even bothering to undress. Careful not to cause him pain, she sighed and curled her body up against his, resting her head on his right shoulder. She could feel the unevenness of his old scar against her cheek before she fell asleep.

-

_You ask what laws rule "failure" or "success"—_

_Songs of fishermen float to the still shore._

_-- "To the Assistant Prefect Chang", Wang Wei_

-

**Author's Note**: Hoorah! A long chapter, finally. Hoorah! They rescued Jack, finally. Lots of things to say "hoorah" about. Plus, it's just fun to say.

Anyway, I hope the speediness of this update sort of makes up for the terribleness of the last.

Have fun, as always, at let me know what you think.


	5. Forgotten

Chapter: Forgotten

-

"_We climbed up, he first and I behind him, far enough to see, through a round opening, a few of those fair things the heavens bear. Then we came forth, to see again the stars."_

_- The Inferno, Dante _

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason why Mr. Dante Alighieri is _the_ master.)

-

The first thing Jack noticed as he stirred from his slumber was a familiar scent. Nothing was familiar in the place he was supposed to be; it was all rock and dirt and decay. But this, this was sweet. A woman. How was it possible that he could smell a woman? He was imprisoned. He was as good as dead. Women did not come to this place.

God, he hurt. Every muscle, every joint, ached like nothing he had ever experienced. _That's fever, idiot. You know what it's like to have a fever. _A voice. Clarity. Maybe he could open his eyes. Something had changed, he knew. Something was different. He creaked one eye open, squinting beneath the pale light of the lamp overhead.

-

Sophia awoke when her pillow moved. _Pillows don't move._ She bolted up, staring wide-eyed at the distressed man before her. Groaning, she passed a hand over her forehead as the grogginess slowly abandoned her and she began to think more coherently. It was still night, for outside darkness still covered the sea. _Damn. _Jack was awake and staring at her with a surprisingly clear gaze, his brows furrowed in confusion.

It took Sophia several moments to understand that he didn't recognize her, and one glance at his flushed and sweaty skin convinced her that his fever was at fault. Without a word, she pushed aside the bedcovers and crawled across the bed towards his side. Touching his wrist lightly, she sighed. "This is three times, Jack. Three times you've woken and failed to know me."

Jack's confusion melted, and now he remembered. They had rescued him. _She _was here. He opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound that escaped him was a dry rasping noise that signaled his thirst.

Guilt swelled up in Sophia's gut as she realized that she had forgotten to give the poor man water or nourishment of any kind. She really was a terrible nurse. "God. . . I'm sorry, Jack," she breathed, her voice laced with despair. She rose and poured him a glass of water from the pitcher that someone had placed on the desk adjacent to the bed and lifted it to his lips while he drank eagerly. Sophia only allowed him one glass—she knew what could happen to men plagued with thirst who indulged their yearning for water too quickly.

Jack cleared his throat several times before speaking, his voice a raspy parody of its previous rich tone. "How did you find me?"

Sophia busied herself with clearing away the mess that she had produced while cleansing his wounds. "You'll have to thank Will for that. He overheard several soldiers speaking about your. . . condition. It took some asking around but eventually he discovered where you were being held. I provided the money and he found a ship for us."

Jack absorbed all of this silently but focused more on Sophia's posture and way of speaking than anything else. Her shoulders were tense and hunched and her sentences short. She was guarding herself and it made no sense to him.

She looked nearly the same—he could see that even through his fever-haze. She still possessed the pallid skin that contrasted darkly with his and those black curls, haloing her face like a shadowy hood. At second glance he noticed that she was thinner than he remembered and her eyes lacked the spark that characterized her vibrant personality. They were cold and dusky. _Oh Sophie. . ._

Sophia lowered her eyes awkwardly and felt her chest constrict as he nearly leveled her with his gaze. Why was this so strange? She thought that after seeing Jack for the first time in five years she would have been ecstatically happy, but now that she was here the uncomfortable silence reigned so thickly that she could have collapsed under the pressure. She glanced up again, her eyes meeting Jack's, and the old emotions that resurfaced threatened to overwhelm her. She had to get out.

Hurriedly she dampened a cloth and, pushing Jack down to a reclining position on the cot, placed it over his balmy forehead. "Your fever's gone down a bit," she informed him. "I'll go fetch some food for you. . .be back in a minute." She was out the door before Jack could say a thing. He sighed faintly as the cold compress quelled his dizziness, although the lack of it only made his hunger more apparent to him.

He didn't understand her at all. Granted, it was a bit bizarre to see her again after such a long time of only viewing her face in memories and wishing she could be beside him, near him, anything, but she was acting as if he was a complete stranger!

_Norrington. _Bloody hell, how could he have forgotten? She was married. She probably had _children_.

Jack groaned deep in his throat as his hopes shattered.

_She didn't want to remember. _

_-_

Sophia slid down to a seated position against the wall and sobbed pitifully into the skirts of that ridiculous green dress she was still wearing because she had forgotten to change. Her rampant emotions leaked out in torrents from her eyes, years of suppressed lamentation surfacing at last. It took only a _look _from him to draw the sadness out of her. A _look. _How was she to handle months on a ship with him?

His eyes had been blank when they gazed upon her—there was no warmth of affection, no remembered intimacy. She was one of many conquests. In the five years since their last embrace he had probably forgotten all about her.

The thought of it only made Sophia cry harder, an ache in her chest a constant malady. _So this is what it feels like as one's heart breaks. I'd forgotten. _It had been so long ago and she'd effectively numbed her emotions since then, but the sight of Jack, so familiar and yet such a distant enigma, brought all the heartbreak and pain back into sharp relief.

And yet her weeping disgusted her. _There are so many others who have a greater and nobler reason to cry than you and yet do not. You are weak. _

These sorts of thoughts, Sophia had realized some years ago, meant that she was no longer a child. Children believe that their problems actually have significance to every other soul on the planet, and that their woes are the most serious of all. Sophia highly doubted that any more than three people in this world cared that her heart had just shattered in her chest.

And so she waited until her breathing slowed and the muscles in her chest relaxed and then grew quiet. Her tears dried and she went to the galley to retrieve some food for Jack because her problems were nothing. A five-year-old slip of parchment inscribed with long-forgotten words of promise whisked away by a wind smelling of sea salt.

-

Jack opened his eyes as he heard the door creak open and a rustle of skirts as Sophia sat beside him once more. He watched her carefully as she wet the compress again and placed the renewed coolness on his forehead. Her expression was tense and Jack thought he saw a faint puffiness and flush around her eyes.

Sophia tore off a chunk of the bread she had brought and dipped it in a mug of ale for easy chewing before handing it to Jack, her eyes averted as his fingers brushed hers when he took it. He did not wolf it down as she suspected, but instead chewed thoughtfully as if savoring the first food that wasn't foul he had eaten in months, which was probably the case. Sophia couldn't bear the silence. "This should do for a while. If you eat too much too quickly you'll be even more sick than you are already, and—"

"'Ave you been crying, Sophie?"

"—that could be life-threatening. We'll have to be careful for at least a fortnight until you can regain your strength. Bread is gentle enough on the stomach as is ale and you should be able to digest it well enough. You'll need your dressings checked soon, although none of the wounds are too serious, thankfully. The worst is your hand. I'm afraid you may not regain the full movement of your fingers, but—"

"Sophie. . ."

"—that's the best we can hope for, really. Other than that there are numerous minor scrapes, including a rather nasty one on your face. You've also been beaten quite badly, which I'm sure you're aware of, and one of your ribs is cracked and there is extensive bruising. The bruises and scrapes should clear up in several days as your strength gradually returns, so we'll want to keep you hydrated and your hunger satiated as long as—"

"Sophie!"

"_Don't call me that!_" Sophia was breathless and trembling; she had been speaking very quickly. She felt drained and powerless, as if her random tirade spent all of her energy and she was now an empty shell. She knew she sounded like she had finally gone absolutely mad, but she needed to fill the _stillness_ of the room. Now, with Jack calling her by the nickname only he had used and his barefaced question about her emotional state, her calmness had all but flown right out of the porthole.

Jack stared at her. Never in his life had he seen Sophia so unraveled. Angry? Sad? Exasperated? Of course, more times than he could count. But this? Never. Her eyes were distant and he knew that she barely understood the slew of words that had just escaped from her mouth. Slowly, as if approaching a spooked horse, he reached out a hand to trace the rough pad of his fingertip down her forearm, sensing that she needed something to draw her back to the present. She drew back as if his touch burned.

Sophia needed out. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm afraid I'm rather tired. I'll leave the food with you and you may finish it if you like. Goodnight," she whispered, before rising shakily to her feet and moving in a daze towards the door.

Jack let out a long sigh as she shut the door and quickly finished the bread and ale. Despite his calm exterior, Jack felt nearly as unbalanced as Sophia sounded. Blood was whirring in his ears and he knew it wasn't from the fever. The sound of her voice and the texture of her skin set his mind in motion and the realization that he couldn't have her, that she wouldn't let him have her, all but killed him. The thought of her was the only thing that had kept him alive in that dark prison. The memories kept him sane.

He had realized too late that he loved her after her departure, five years ago, from the Black Pearl. _Yes, he loved her_. It took her absence for him to understand that what he felt for her was, in fact, that dreaded emotion, and he had wanted to hurl it into the sea along with any memories of her only to save himself the pain. She'd left, it had been weeks, and he still expected to see her face at the end of each day when he returned to his cabin. He still waited for her to come for him in his dreams. It took nearly a month for him to stop expecting. To stop waiting. To loose hope.

And now, any hope that might have been rekindled since his rescue was dashed away with one glance at her face, closed to him.

-

Will found Sophia sitting on the stairs that led to the ship's wheel just as the sun was beginning to rise and transform the sky from the darkest blue to a delicate pink. She had her face buried in her hands. She looked very much the noblewoman, with her dark green dress and her hair just beginning to fall out of its containment at the crown of her head, and Will found it strange against the backdrop of the ship. He was surprised that she had not changed into her customary breeches and blouse and sat beside her, the stair creaking quietly as it accommodated to support his bulk.

She was still silent although he was sure she would have noticed him. He was still for a time as well, although soon he found the silence too strange to bear. "How did things go with Jack?"

Sophia heard him, of course. She didn't want to leave the comforting darkness that the shield of her hands created around her eyes or speak lest the suppressed sobs in her voice give her mental state away. _Go away, Will_.

"Sophia?" He questioned, worry now hinting at his voice. "Is everything alright?"

With a sigh Sophia spoke, her tone oddly calm. "Yes, of course everything is alright. Jack is doing wonderfully and I gave him both food and water. His fever has gone down and my guess is that it will be gone by the afternoon as long as we keep him healthy."

Will was not convinced. She looked so small, her exposed shoulders drawn forward in a protective stance and her knees drawn to her chest. Hesitantly, he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her towards him. "Are _you _alright?" He asked softly.

This cracked Sophia's already weak defenses completely. She let out a dry sob and turned her face to Will's chest, curling into him like an injured animal. She clung to him, her back shaking with silent tears, all the while apologizing over and over as she cried. "I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry. . ."

"Hush," he insisted, stroking her hair away from her neck and sighing as he remembered the times that his Elizabeth, his wife, had cried similarly against him. After Jack and Arabella were born and she experienced the strange flux of hormones of new mothers and was struck down with tears at odd moments during the day. When her father died. Once the great rust stain on the sheets grew enough that she realized that her life would end and she would not be able to watch baby Elizabeth grow up.

But this was Sophia, who was crying for a very different reason. He spoke softly to her, reassuring her that she had done well, that Jack appreciated her help, that he and her cousin loved her.

Eventually she calmed, breathing gusts of warm, humid air against his skin as her heart slowed. Sophia felt absolutely exhausted and ashamed, once again, that she had allowed herself to cry. She spoke, finally, her voice raspy. "He doesn't. . .he doesn't. . ." _Love me. _She couldn't bring herself to say the words.

Will withdrew so that he could look into her eyes, his own a kind liquid brown against her flat gray. "Don't worry yourself with that now, Sophia. You need rest. Go back to your cabin and have a nice long sleep and I'll look after Jack for a bit."

Sophia nodded mutely and stood haltingly, her legs cramped after sitting for so long, and made her way blindly back to her cabin. She fell asleep almost immediately, whispers of past demons and present heartache singing songs in her head.

_-_

"_Serious delirious imperious weary us deleterious ways."_

_- The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingslover _

_-_

**Author's Note**: I couldn't resist the "singing songs in her head" line. That comes from being too familiar with the Phantom of the Opera, I confess.

There is absolutely no excuse for the lateness of this chapter save for total lack of inspiration. This was not writer's block, for I wrote many words down in many different ways. The problem was, they were just that. _Words_. I had nothing interesting to say and it was all, in a word, crap. Melodramatic (although it still is melodramatic, I admit) crap. Still, as I said, this is no excuse. This is the longest I've ever gone without updating and it quite frankly disgusts me. I'm so very very sorry.

Anyway, on with the show. Poor Jack and Sophia! A mutual misunderstanding, no? The poor dears. Hopefully everything will turn out right. Hopefully. . .

No, I wouldn't submit you guys to the torture of another unhappy ending. I'm not _that _evil.

Or am I?

(I'm not)

It is far, far too late to be doing anything but sleeping.


	6. Light

Chapter: Light

-

_But for mine own part, it was Greek to me._

_- Julius Caesar, Billy Shakespeare_

-

The next week passed without further incident.

Sophia cared for Jack as expressionlessly as was required of any good nurse. She did not cry again and refused to allow herself to fall apart as she had that first night of his rescue. She didn't let him see that her heart was aching every time she set eyes on him and his distant demeanor nearly killed her.

She adopted a friendly but platonic character around Jack that kept the conversation flowing but avoided any words of actual meaning. After long hours of self-counseling, Sophia was finally able to converse normally with him despite the constant lump in her throat and the heaviness of her gut.

Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth, was the only person who understood. At night the girl would slip silently into Sophia's cabin and lie beside her cousin, stroking Sophia's hair with the tenderness of a mother while she trembled with pain. Elizabeth was with her when Sophia had left Jack; she knew the extent of her love for him. She remembered Sophia's state after she had returned to Port Royal, only to realize that her dreaded dream was folly and all the pain needn't have happened. Sophia could have stayed with him.

And so Sophia would shut her eyes as her cousin whispered ineffective comforts in the dark and try to stop the tears.

-

Jack was sure he was dying. His body grew stronger by the hour, his ribs filled out with the increased amounts of food he was given each day, and his bruises and cuts had all but disappeared, and his fever had completely dissipated, but he was dying. His soul, it seemed, was giving out on him.

The sight of Sophia each day, her mouth set in an increasingly tense line as she changed his bandages and her body rigid with careful resolve, was torture. He didn't know what was happening to him. All the women before had never _meant _anything to him. Sophia scared him; the thought of going on the rest of his life without her frightened him more than anything else he could ever imagine. And it looked as if living without her would be exactly what he would have to do.

-

"You, Jack Sparrow, are filthy," Sophia told him one day as she changed his bandages. "I must have cleaned your wounds hundreds of times and yet the dirt still remains."

Jack gave her a small, sad smile. "Aye. Prison tends to 'ave that effect." Sophia's fingertips stilled over his skin. She didn't like to remember the torture he had endured in that dreadful place.

The muscles in Jack's shoulder tensed suddenly as Sophia moved her palm over the familiar scar just below his collarbone. The touch of her fingers on his skin made the blood whir in his head again.

"How much of that night do you remember, Jack? When I took that bullet out and cured the infection?" Sophia asked him, her voice very quiet. "It was such a long time ago and I was so very frightened. In the weeks that followed we were sure you would not last, your fever was so high."

Jack had to concentrate very hard to keep his voice steady and even then didn't trust himself to speak. He didn't reply. The truth was he remembered almost nothing of his sickness, but had heard the stories from his crew of how she had acted with unexpected strength and courage time and again.

Sophia looked up at him and managed a fleeting smile. "No matter." She gave a great sigh. "As I said, it was long ago, and things are different now. I would not act as foolhardy as I did, knowing what I know now. I could have killed you."

Jack did not know what to say to that.

_He's so quiet_. Sophia had begun to get very worried about Jack in the past week. He was stronger now, he could walk around the room without becoming too fatigued, but the Jack she had known was gone. There were almost no jokes to speak of, no playful banter. Will and Elizabeth had noticed it as well and asked her if she knew the reason. Sophia forced her mind back into the present. "I'll ask the cook to heat up some water for a bath and send Will in to assist you. It's about time you got cleaned up." She forced her voice to remain distant despite the knowledge that it would only cause the rift between them to widen.

Jack swallowed painfully as he observed close off again, as if erecting a sound stone wall between them. Strangely it reminded him of Sophia's first days on the Black Pearl all those years ago, when she had been young and frightened and refused to allow anyone in to see the pain that she kept so close to her heart. He hadn't truly realized how much their relationship had regressed until he saw that same forced impassiveness in her expression when she looked at him.

He cleared his throat and simply replied, "Aye, 'tis."

-

In truth Jack hated baths, but even he could agree that he needed one. The grime seemed to melt off him the moment he sank into the steaming water and let out an involuntary groan as the heat relaxed his muscles. Will, sitting on the cot with his nose in a book, chuckled faintly. "Enjoying it after all, are you?"

Jack considered throwing the soap at him but decided that it was more trouble than it was worth. Will wasn't really needed; Jack was more than capable after a week of good food and nursing of getting into the small portable tub. But Sophia had insisted through Will's assurances, for "Jack might slip and crack his head," and her "medical expertise is not _quite_ that extensive. Terribly sorry." Will often found Sophia's humor utterly entertaining.

Jack sloshed water over the edge of the tub as he sank further into the bath, glancing at the slimy brown soap hesitantly. He knew what this every day soap was made of, and didn't think that cattle-fat and his skin should mix. Nevertheless, Will's distracted persistence that he should wash his hair as well otherwise Sophia would have his head finally convinced him and he set to work scrubbing.

"So, Will, what 'ave you been up to since I saw you last? Those demons you like t' call children keepin' your 'ands full?" Jack asked good-humoredly, grateful for time to talk casually with his old friend. Surprisingly he and Will hadn't seen much of each other. Will was busy directing the ship.

"Of course. Arabella and Jack will be into adolescence soon, unfortunately," Will added ruefully, "and Lizzy's still practically a baby. They are wonderful children. . . staying with their grandfather at present. He loves to have them running about."

Jack felt a pang of both sympathy and admiration for his friend. His children consumed his life—he had no time for thoughts of his own desires and finding someone to love. Jack scrubbed persistently at the dirt between his fingers as he continued, "Lovely. . . Doing alrigh' without Elizabeth?"

Will's forehead creased faintly with painful thoughts of his deceased wife. "Well enough, I suppose. Sophia's a wonderful help with the children—a surrogate mother, if you will."

"Is she?" Jack muttered distractedly. She had complete life, a good life, a life without him. Why would she want to give that up?

Will wanted to say more. He felt such an ache in his heart for Sophia and she was so devastatingly alone in her normal life at Port Royal. A constant pain showed through her eyes and her face was always tense with it. He wanted to tell Jack that Sophia was still waiting for him. That she loved him, even if he didn't love her in return.

He couldn't. His lips wouldn't form the words. He couldn't jeopardize his friendship with either of them, and he was sure if he got in the middle of their relationship that was exactly what he would be doing.

He glanced over the top of his book at Jack's submerged form and his gaze lingered there. Jack's elbows rested on the edge of the tub he had covered his face with his hands. His shoulders were rigid and Will could hear his open-mouthed breathing from across the room. Will furrowed his brow in confusion.

Just then a knock came at the door and Sophia's voice sounded soon after: "Hurry up, Jack. I've given you more than enough time to wash. I'm coming in in exactly one minute and you had better be dressed."

The sound of Sophia's words startled Jack, and he brought his head up abruptly. After sinking one last time into the water he clambered out of the tub and dried himself off with a towel. He donned a pair of breeches and a shirt Will had lent him and wrinkled his nose at his reflection in the fogged mirror. As soon as they touched land he was going to get some better clothes. These were too. . . regular.

"I hope you're decent," Sophia said loudly as she banged open the door and bustled in armed with a comb, shears, and a shaving razor. She smiled faintly at the vision of Jack looking clean and, well. . . unusually polished, save for his hair and beard, of course. The absence of kohl around his eyes made his face seem more open and real—the mystery of that black was gone. Jack busied himself with attempting to sop up the water he'd splashed on the floor with his towel. "Leave it," Sophia stated curtly. "This ship's just a pile of lumber anyway."

"Be careful, Sophia. You'll resurrect terrible memories of Jack's talking like that. I believe you called The Black Pearl that a while back," Will declared absentmindedly, still reading his book.

Jack's face darkened considerably. Sophia dared not ask what had become of his beloved ship. She would save that for another time. She pulled out the chair from the desk and motioned for him to sit, smiling again at Jack's horrified look. "Sit," she ordered briskly.

Jack knew instantly what she was doing. She was pretending as if everything was all right, like they were nothing more than acquaintances. It troubled him deeply despite his compliance. He sat down.

"You're going to touch _that_?" Will asked incredulously, pointing at the dripping mass of tangles that was Jack's hair.

"Of course," Sophia replied, and left it at that.

It was a painstaking process, doubled by the fact that the close proximity to Jack was making her uncomfortable. He protested quite a lot about the pain her combing was causing him, but she ignored the majority of it. "You don't have to wear a corset, heels, and a three-foot skirt and prance about all day, do you?" She questioned quietly as she yanked through the tangled ends of his hair. That kept him quiet until she came to the fact that she would have to remove his beads and whatever else he kept in his hair. That suggestion was met with a roar of protest and he only agreed when Sophia told him he could braid them back in when she was finished. Finally she got his hair smooth, and found it looked undoubtedly strange on him. She snipped off the ends with her shears until it was at a respectable length (for him) and tied it back at the nape of his neck with a bit of string.

Jack closed his eyes briefly and tried not to feel her fingers as they grazed across his skin. He really couldn't take this much longer. His skin was buzzing with unspent energy and frustration. This whole situation, everything that remained unsaid, was going to be the death of him.

Sophia tried to focus on the task at hand and not on the man that looked at her so intensely as she moved around to stand before him and inspect his beard before handing him the razor and shears. She couldn't do any more. Her chest felt heavy and her breathing was shallow with pain. "You can do it. . .you know better than I how you want everything looking. I'm sorry, but I think I'll retire to my room. I'm a bit tired."

With that she turned and walked out of the cabin, leaving Jack and Will to ponder over her behavior.

-

The scent of soap and hot water had convinced Sophia that it was time for her own bath, and, although heating pail after pail of water was a definite pain, the result was worth it. She stared in satisfaction at the steaming bath before her as she stripped her cloths off, unbound her hair, and slipped seamlessly into the water, oily with heat. She nearly trembled in delight. She had positioned the tub so that her back would be facing the door, for the only locks on the ship were for stored goods and she was fairly vulnerable. Not that she thought anyone would walk in. She sensed that the crew was somewhat frightened of her, the woman who worked and dressed like a man and had such a dark past that Will had, she was sure, forbidden them to ask her about it. The all fumbled like idiots around her and were careful and polite about their questions, never searching for the deeper Sophia that lied within her hard exterior.

And so, she guessed that they would not be brave enough to enter her domain. Will had the good sense not to, and if Elizabeth happened to walk in blithely as she so often did, humming under her breath, it didn't matter in the least.

She rejoiced in the peace the silence and heat brought her. It shielded thoughts of Jack from her active mind and pushed him to her subconscious. She sighed, working the soap into a lather in her hair, and afterwards submerged completely into the water. When she came up she felt wonderfully clean and refreshed.

Now all she needed was a bit of candy.

-

Will was called out to return to his duty manning the ship so Jack worked alone in his room, drawing the somewhat dull razor across the underside of his jaw carefully. He decided to leave his beard and mustache as it was before his imprisonment, his customary style with the two braids at his chin and a sparse amount of stubble along his jaw line. Then he braided and looped all of the beads and trinkets he kept in his hair, although he decided to forego the long white spine of a feather he included beforehand simply because he could not find a way to attach it. He had simply stuck it in the mass of hair previously but now it just slid out from between the silky black tendrils. He had to admit the smoothness of his hair combined with the texturing of the beads and his newly acquired state of cleanliness was dashing compared to his previous look. Maybe until he went out to sea again he would maintain this appearance.

What was to happen once they returned to Port Royal? Jack assumed he would stay with Will. It didn't seem like Sophia would be welcoming him into her home anytime soon, and it was likely that Norrington would shoot him on sight. He highly doubted the prick of a man would forget that he had "kidnapped" his wife _twice. _He would need to live a life of reclusion until he could get a ship.

Sophia. The thought of her was poison in his mind. His patience was wearing thin with their charade, and her abrupt departure from his room had been the final straw. He was tired of always feeling this pain that never seemed to lessen, and his desire for her—not only physical, but emotional as well—was threatening to overwhelm him. If he had been a religious man he would have prayed for answers, but he had strayed from that path long ago and so he decided to address his questions the only way he knew how: by asking them.

-

Sophia's eyes were closed when she heard the door creak open and footsteps halt at the threshold of her room. She quelled the impulse to cover herself and turn around to see who stood at her doorstep and instead spoke, her voice cool but containing an edge that revealed faint anger. "Whoever you are, I suggest you turn around, close the door, and go back where you came from."

The familiar voice came from behind her, faintly husky. "Not for all th' gold in the Caribbean, love."

Sophia let out a surprised yell and slipped further into the tub, her limbs, slender of calf and ankle and shining with water, flailing in the air as she caught herself with her hands. "J-Jack?" She sputtered, twisting about so that her head peeked over the top of the bathtub. She fought not to loose all of her breath. He was freshly groomed and looked oddly sleek, a look she decided that she could get used to very quickly. He was still thin, but the musculature that she had admired so was beginning too re-emerge. Sophia had loaded his diet with protein to rebuild lost flesh, and she saw now through the outlines of his borrowed shirt that it had served him well.

Jack grinned faintly at her, and she thought she saw a hint of the old spark in his eye. _Lust? _For her? He was certainly staring intently enough.

Jack had to keep very tight control over hisbody so that he did not rush over and ravish her then and there. He didn't need to see her entire figure for his own to react as it was; the smooth curve of the one glowing shoulder bared to him from behind the edge of the tub was enough. He needed answers first, he told himself. He needed to know what was causing her to be so cold to him.

"What are you _doing _here?" Sophia cried, her voice not so much angry as confused. Well, a little bit angry. Without waiting for him to answer she spoke again. "Turn your back or I shall be forced to scream for Will. You had no right to come here, Jack!"

Jack raised his eyebrows and felt his own anger surge through his limbs at her response to his intrusion. Why was she acting like this? She had no reason to be modest or frightened around him. He didn't answer her and calmly walked in the room, closing the door behind him. Sophia stared at him, bewildered and angry. His silence unnerved her.

"Get out, Jack!"

"No," he replied simply, before abruptly striding over to her, grabbing her elbow and hauling her out of the tub. Sophia shrieked in surprise to both his actions and the unexpected strength with which he lifted her. It seemed he had recovered faster than she expected.

Sophia shivered and felt an unexpected wave of modesty wash over her as Jack's eyes lingered briefly on her exposed flesh. The water was streaming off her in waves and still Jack held onto both her shoulders, the tightness of his grip betraying his anger. Finally his eyes met hers and she could see the storm of misunderstanding and pain that swirled within them. "Let go of me," she hissed venomously, trying to wriggle her way out of his grip.

He held fast. "Listen, Sophie," he said quietly, the hushed tones of his voice almost more unsettling than if he had been screaming at her. She was distracted; the feel of his hands on her skin and the desire to be free of his hold was too much. He shook her shoulders. "Listen!" This time he did raise his voice, and she shrunk back as the effect of it hit her.

"Why'd you come for me? Why risk your marriage an' your life to take me back t' one that's never going to matter? Don't you understand? I'd rather spend th' rest o' me life in that prison than endure this! Are you tha' cruel, t' raise my hopes when I see you in tha' cell and then bring 'em all crashin' down? Why're you acting when you're 'round me? You're _married_, for Christ's sakes, an' you're not th' type o' woman t' cheat on a 'usband on your way back home!Why'd you come? Will could've managed on 'is own—why make me wish for death again after I was already so close t' it? Why're you so cold t' me, after all that we've shared? You don't understand tha' you're _killing_ me because I love you an' you don't seem t' care!" The questions poured out of him like water before he finally quieted, his breathing harsh and ragged. He abruptly released her and turned away, sitting on her cot with his head cradled in his hands, his back curved and his shoulders shaking with effort.

Sophia thought she might seriously faint. _He loved her. _He'd actually said the words. Sophia didn't notice the tears pouring down her cheeks and mixing with the droplets of bathwater still clinging to her skin. She didn't notice her shivering or the fact that she was still completely naked. She was oblivious to all else. He loved her and he missed her and he wanted her and he didn't understand that she wanted the same things he did.

"Oh my god. . ." Sophia whispered. "Oh god oh god oh god. . . Jack, James died. Five years ago. I came back from the ship and they told me he was killed in an accident. I died that day. I lost the will for everything. I was in bed for a month. I had lost you for stupid reason, that stupid dream. I hated myself." She took a shaky breath and raised her eyes to his. He was staring at her, his body posed and tense like he was about to jump but couldn't, not yet. She continued. "I sent letters everywhere I could think of, but of course they never found you. I. . . I tried everything except going to look for you because I knew I would fail." Her voice broke in a sob. "Self-preservation. That's why I've been acting the way I have. I thought you didn't want me and I had to distance myself to save my sanity. Ask Will. . . the morning after your rescue I cried so terribly. And I love you as well, more than anything! You must believe me, Jack. I was dying of it! I—"

She was cut off by Jack's kiss. He clasped his arms tightly around her bare waist and lifted her off her feet. Sophia whimpered softly, like an injured puppy, as the warmth of his mouth cloaked her in passion. The feel of his lips on hers was a sensation that she had missed so much she found that her legs literally did not work anymore. She pressed herself to him and mentally damned his clothes the ninth and worst circle of hell for betraying their passion.

Jack could not comprehend anything that was happening. He moved in a blur as Sophia wrapped her legs around his waist and touched his neck with her small white hands. She touched his shoulders, his earlobe, his back, his arms, his face, everything as she kissed him. He had longed for that touch for five years and the shock of it nearly made him release her.

Sophia withdrew from their kiss, tears of happiness and relief pouring from her eyes. "Come to bed, Jack. . . Finally, come to bed."

-

_What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?_

_What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?_

_Unless it be to think that she is by_

_And feed upon the shadow of perfection_

_Except I be by Silvia in the night,_

_There is no music in the nightingale;_

_Unless I look on Silvia in the day,_

_There is no day for me to look upon;_

_She is my essence._

_- Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare_

_-_

**Author's Notes**: They said it! Yes yes yes yes! Oh, I love love love love this extra loooong chapter. It was so much fun to write and incredibly romantic, but I only hope not too corny. I feel strangely as if we've come full circle, and it took ten freakin' for them to say I LOVE YOU!

I decided Jack was being too much of a wuss. Yay for forceful sexy Jack! It seemed more realistic to his character if he took things into his own hands instead of hiding out. He did go through this terrible experience, but it still wasn't him to be hanging around and waiting for things to happen.

I may be a stretch, but I might be able to get a chapter out by Monday night (no telling how late Monday night. It's exactly 4:19 am now, which explains my hyper mood).

Please: Review review review! I want reactions to this extraordinary (and happy, finally) turn of events! My writing style/contentdepends on it!


	7. Exorcism

Chapter: Exorcism

_

* * *

_

_He wasn't pretty unless you were in love with him._

_Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros_

* * *

The door to Jack's cabin was ajar. Will, his work completed for the night, stopped on his way to his own sleeping quarters to glance in and assure himself that all was well. The room was empty. 

His brow furrowed. Where could that man have gone in his state? Surely not out to do actual _work_ on the ship. Will had noticed the longing in Jack's face whenever he took his brief walks around deck, the desire to perform the duties that he had for the majority of his life. But no, Will would have seen him if Jack had decided to join the crew.

Slowly, he turned around in the direction of Sophia's cabin; the door was closed and he heard faint shouting from within. Feeling unpleasantly like an intruder, Will walked with careful steps to the door and pressed his ear to the coarse wood.

". . .so cold t' me, after all that we've shared? You don't understand tha' you're killing me because I love you an' you don't seem t' care!"

". . .Jack, James died. Five years ago. I came back from the ship and they told me he was killed in an accident. I died that day. I lost the will for everything. . ."

Will grinned as he made his way to his cabin. _It took them long enough._

_

* * *

_

Jack kissed Sophia eyes and the tears that continued to fall from them. Everything was a blur: his hands stroking her damp body, her legs intertwining with his own, everything.

She was just as he remembered.

Sophia couldn't stop weeping as sensation and feeling returned to her with Jack's touch. She had been living for too long in coldness. _Finally. _She stripped away Jack's clothing swiftly, crying out as he finally pressed the full length of his body to hers, heat, blessed heat, rushing into her being at last. She grasped his face between her hands and kissed him, this man who had given her a reason to live again when she had had none. She realized only now how empty her life had been.

Their lovemaking was not gentle—they would have time for that later. Now they needed to be connected, whole. Jack latched his lips onto her shoulder and sucked as he stroked his thumb over her nipple roughly, relishing the knowledge that a scarlet mark would replace his mouth by the morning. She was his at last.

Sophia's eyes slid closed and all of her breath escaped her in an immense gasp, leaving her panting with need. She could feel Jack smirking against her skin and she slid her knee up his inner thigh in response, releasing a husky chuckle as he stilled above her and made a low sound in his throat. A familiar tension grew continuously in her lower belly and when he touched her very center, her soul, her self, she felt it heighten to a point she had not thought possible. He was languidly slow, torturing her with contact that he knew was only slightly lighter than she needed, keeping her writhing at the threshold of her desire.

The sight of her, eyes screwed shut, lips open and flushed with passion, gasping with abandon, nearly cost him his restraint. Smoothly he left her breathless with need on _the_ precipice, and moved over her.

Sophia spread her knees and shuddered as Jack's hardened length touched her, her shoulders curving into her body to suppress the climax she felt approach already. She wanted to wait for him.

And yet he did nothing. He gazed down at her, the lines of his face rigid with desire, and stilled.

Sophia closed her eyes. She couldn't wait much longer. "Jack. . ."

The sound of his name from her lips undid him. Jack looked at her steadily as he slid into her sharply and forced himself to watch her reaction despite the pleasure that surged through him and rendered him immobile for several seconds, sure that if he ventured to move even an inch he would loose control. She closed her eyes, tears still quivering on the long lashes that lay against her cheek, and released a long moan. He couldn't stay still any more. With a groan, he began to thrust quickly, his breath ragged; for five years he had waited for this. Waited for this woman.

Sophia grasped Jack's shoulders and pressed her face against the side of his neck as she bore the weight of his thrusts and lifted her hips to meet his own. She licked the saltiness of his skin and pressed her mouth to him, her breathing shallow.

She felt the coil of release grow in her belly and her inner muscles reflexively squeezed the length of him as he moved within her. Jack stilled for only a moment, his eyes glazing over with passion and his own need for release.

Sophia screamed as she came. That scream was the final exorcism of all her demons, and finally she was free. She felt her womb contract and spasm against him and heard Jack hiss through his teeth as the flood of him gushed into her.

They stayed still a long time after their torrential passion, their breathing as one, limbs trembling as the last of their ecstasy washed over them. They clutched themselves against each other, willing this moment to last for an eternity and not wanting to part. Sophia was finally the one to break the spell, drawing away from their embrace to kiss his jaw, his cheek, his lips, her hands stroking the sweaty hair away from his temples. Jack leaned into her touch, the muscles in his arms and back shuddering as he fought to stay immobile over her. At last Sophia drew him to her, curving her body into his on the bed. They needed no words—any exclamations of love or passion were unnecessary. They did not need to hear how one another felt; they could simply sense it, feel it. Emotions.

* * *

Sophia woke when night's silent power still reigned over the sea. It was so quiet. Her eyes flicked open. 

Jack slept beside her, his breath a comforting sound in the calm. She watched him for a long while, not daring to touch his skin lest he woke, wishing that she could spend an eternity with this peace.

Sophia eased carefully from the bed and slipped Jack's shirt over her bare shoulders, leaving the front unbuttoned as she creaked open the door and stepped into a world bathed in moonlight. The water moved as if sewn with silver and black thread, the white orb hanging heavily in the sky casting shadows and light over the waves. Sophia smiled, and tilted her face up to the stars.

* * *

_"She waited for me, standing straight, alive. . .And when I approached, more timidly than a little child, she did not run away. No, no. She stayed. She waited for me. I actually believe that she slightly, oh, not very much, but ever so slightly presented her forehead to me. And. . .and. . .I kissed it. . .I, I, I. And she is not dead. And she stayed normally beside me after I had kissed her like that, on the forehead. Oh! It's so good to kiss someone! . . .I fell at her feet and wept._

_- The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux_

_

* * *

_

**Author's Note**: EDITED! Repeat, EDITED! I've added some things in and changed the quote at the end (the Phantom of the Opera breaks my heart). I wrote the un-revised version of this chapter so quickly that I felt it needed polishing and just more in general. I hope I managed to improve upon it.

My usualdasb thingies I use to separate different sections of the chapter aren't working so I have to use the ugly ginormous lines. Go figure.


	8. A Backwards Surrender

Chapter: A Backwards Surrender

"_I am very quiet. Let the moths and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear."_

_- All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque_

_-_

_Jack stayed. Completely, utterly alone, he stayed._

_The ship looked like a gaunt and spectral chassis against the black sky. It was so calm on his empty, beloved vessel, even with bullets maiming her sides and splinters that imbedded themselves in his arms exploding from her damaged deck. Pain blossomed from his thigh and he vaguely registered that he was no longer standing as he kept shooting. _

_They'd told him he was mad to stay and guard this beautiful ship, the thing he loved second best in all the world. That, just because he thought that he had nothing left to live for, he couldn't sacrifice his life like some forgotten, once-upon-a-time-tragic martyr, that they wouldn't let him. He pulled his pistol out of his belt and threatened them with a swift demise lest they leave him to finally encounter his own. And they left, all but one. _

_The traitor had looked at his former captain levelly, his eyes mocking where respect and reverence had once flourished. Jack, his lovely countenance expressionless in a manner that had become notorious in the past five years, had calmly turned his back to the man he had considered a friend and faced the legion of ships that rapidly approached, his stormy eyes reflecting the host of Union Jacks that fluttered in the wind like a backwards surrender. _

_So now everyone was gone, and Jack, like the hero he'd never considered himself to be, pulled himself to his feet and, clinging to the mast of his downfall, continued to fire at the onslaught of red jackets and bayonets. He felt a pierce in his gut, like fire in the cold numbness, and sank to the ground._

_The last he remembered was a swimming face over his prone body. The last thing he remembered was lifting his arm, rock-steady, and shooting that shimmering, fading face right between the eyes. The last thing he remembered was the red mist of a stranger's blood mixing with his own._

"_Now, you bastards. Now you 'ave what you want. Take it… it doesn't matter."_

_-_

Jack woke with a start.

_Tha' bloody dream._

It always shook him, and he awoke sweating as he remembered the darkest moment in his life. It frightened him—yes, contrary to popular belief, Jack Sparrow could feel fear—that he had felt so utterly dead even as he dodged bullets. His last words before falling into unconsciousness had rung true; _nothing_ had mattered. Not his freedom, not his life, not even the woman who had stolen his soul. It had been as if his sanity had finally snapped and he was far away from anything of consequence, watching his would-be suicide from a stranger's perspective. Oh yes, it frightened him.

The dream shook him because he knew that the uncaring monster that had surfaced the night of his ruin had not died along with his freedom that night. He wondered if—when—it would choose to make its second debut.

Jack sighed and sat cross-legged on the cot, resting his elbows on his knees and cradling his hot face in his palms. He was so different now, so changed from how he was _before_. Before his heart had died along with his jokes and cares. She had come into his life and changed him for the better, and when she left she left _him_ to rot. To fester in the darkness of his emotions until they overwhelmed him and he was forced to expel them from his body, leaving him like… that unfamiliar being that he refused to name. That was _not_ him. _He_ had feelings. _He_ cared about what happened to other people, his future, and her.

A smooth thigh brushed his own and he turned, surprised, to see the very object of his twisted love tangled in the sheets, one white breast exposed and the round curve of her buttocks obscured only partially by the gauzy material of her bedclothes. Her eyes were closed peacefully in sleep and her skin fairly glowed in the faint moonlight that shone through her window. He was in her room.

Jack's fingers tightened in his hair. He felt sick and stumbled out of the room and out on to the deck to lead over the edge of the ship, breathing the soft wind of the sea deeply as if it was the only thing keeping him from tumbling into the water. Finally, he felt his stomach calm and returned to Sophia's room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was the reason for his misery for so long. _Five years._ He should be furious at her, furious because it was she who decided to leave him in the first place, furious because she had been young and naïve enough to believe in a dream.

_Isn't that what you're doing now?_

This was a dream. This couldn't be happening. He should be dead. He would wake up and discover he was still back at the prison that would serve as his deathbed, place of murder, and cemetery all at once, and be told to ready himself for his hanging.

He hated her passionately and loved her fiercely all at once.

These two things, he was rapidly discovering, were not very different at all in the large spectrum of life.

_What fools these mortals be._

Jack let out a low, guttural groan as he sank back down into the bed, his eyes on the face of the woman beside him. He couldn't sort out the emotions swirling through his mind as he touched her shoulder, her cheek, her breast, her hair. She awoke with a smile and his eyes darkened with both passionate hate and fierce love as her eyelids flicked open, revealing the gray irises beneath.

She gazed at him silently for a moment, noting the conflict and brewing disaster in his eyes. "Jack?"

"I want to kiss you. Please… let me kiss you."

Sophia's eyes widened as she heard how raw his voice was, the danger and the edge of it, and her insides constricted when she saw the strange gleam in his eyes. Something was horribly wrong. "What? Jack, what's—"

Jack kissed her roughly, silencing her question, and abruptly moved over her to cover her with his body. She was soft and unresisting, as if she understood why he needed _this_, a connection with something. He grasped her shoulders hard enough to bruise, he knew, and he kissed her swollen lips with painful force, but she didn't protest. He slid one hand down her side to her leg, hooking her knee around his hips and tearing his lips from hers to gasp brokenly as he finally could feel her softness, her welcome embrace in the world that had threatened to abandon him once more. He was not gentle, nor particularly caring of her needs, and yet all throughout his terrible fall Sophia whispered.

"Shhh… Darling, it's all right. I love you. It's going to be all right. _I love you._"

They were silent for a long while afterwards, the only sounds their rapid breathing and the shifting of sweaty limbs. After all sound had faded into nothingness, Sophia turned to him.

"Will you tell me what happened to you, Jack?"

"I'm sorry."

Sophia looked perplexed, her brow furrowing as she propped herself on her elbow. She winced when the shifting of her legs caused the tender flesh between her thighs to twinge unpleasantly. Jack watched her quietly before his face crumpled in defeat and he cradled his head in his hands to hide his shame.

"Oh… don't be sorry, m'love. I _understand_ why you needed… what you needed," she consoled, lifting his hands from his face to stroke the back of one broad palm reassuringly.

"No, you don't. I can't… I can't explain why, net yet. Bloody hell…" Here he paused, blinking slowly, his face drawn in tense lines. "I raped you, jus' now. I hurt you. Oh, Christ!" He pulled his hand away from her caresses. "How can you touch me? How can you stand the sight o' me?" He stumbled away from her, clumsily retrieving his discarded clothes. Sophia sat on the bed in disbelief. He was almost out the door before she regained her wits enough to right his misconception.

"Jack Sparrow, stop this nonsense this instant!" She bellowed, rising from the bed on legs that were still a mite unsteady and felt unhelpfully like jelly. Jack froze mid-step.

"I _know_ what rape is, you dolt, and that was not it! Don't make assumptions based on what you don't comprehend. You needed something, whether it was consolation or simply the want to _feel_, and I love you and thus gave it to you. _Willingly!_ That is far from rape."

Jack leaned carefully against the doorframe, lifting his face and closing his eyes. "I _used_ you. It's not… simple." He finished lamely, unable to convert his thoughts into words that could be understood.

Sophia approached him slowly, observing the tenseness of his muscles beneath his clothes, the exhausted stance he had taken after her indignant tirade, until she was right in front of him. "I could have stopped you, Jack, with a well-placed kick and a good talking-to, but I didn't. I _gave_ you my body to use. It was a sacrifice I was willing to take to save you from…" She shivered slightly in remembrance of the maniacal gleam in his eyes. "…yourself," she finished with a whisper. Then, as if advancing upon a skittish horse, she leaned into his thin chest, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her nose in the triangle of skin visible above the neck of his shirt. She could feel the tension seep from his body until he returned her embrace, clinging to her tightly. She accepted his silent apology without a word. They stayed like that for a long time, until Sophia lifted her face to his and spoke, her tone resolute,

"Now, Sparrow, you are going to tell me a story. 'How Captain Jack Sparrow Came to Be Imprisoned and Other Tales Concerning His Long Absence' would be a fitting title, I think."

_"I think…if there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts."_

_- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy_

_-_

**Author's Note**: You know what, I'm not even going to talk about how long it has been since I have updated, because it will simply make me too depressed. I offer no excuses. Feel free to lambaste the authoress as you see fit; I deserve it.

I hope everyone is as touched by this chapter as I was. I almost cried writing the first part of it. Of course, it was about two in the morning when I did and I tend to act somewhat strangely in the wee hours of the morning. And I am rather attached to these characters, if you hadn't noticed.

Someone asked me (sorry, I can't remember who you are and I've not the energy to go and look for your review) where I get my quotes for the beginning and end of chapters, if there's a website or something. 'Fraid not. I've read every book I've used for my quotes, and use a highlighter to note passages that I find particularly affecting or meaningful (Yes, I am a dork). Most recently, _Anna Karenina_ is my book extraordinaire. Every person should read it at least once in their lives, if you can get past the length issue (my copy is 817 pages. Hey, it's less than the 5th Harry Potter!). I'm sorry to report that there is no shortcut for finding wonderful snippets of writing.

Again, I am having problems with my usual transitional dashes (I am far to lazy to write _real_ transitions. What did you think?), so some of them are missing. You can probably guess where.

Sad note: I am off to Costa Rica on Tuesday (the 28th) and will be gone for a month—a relatively short amount of time in comparison to my previous absence, sadly. But when I get back it is summer so I should have loads of time to write. Hopefully.

Cheers, as always, _¡y hasta Julio, mis compañeros fantásticos! Se añoraré mucho, y espero que ustedes tienen un verano excelente. _

Must practice my_ español_, you understand.


	9. Starting Over With a Reputation

Chapter: Starting Over With a Reputation

-

_"Who can truly know all that is between man and wife? Even they sometimes do not know, but it was sweet much of the time, and more than that one cannot ask on this earth."_

_- Marrying Mozart, Stephanie Cowell_

-

Sophia was many things: rash, impassioned, dramatic, opinionated, sometimes cruel, often hopeless, and far too strong for her own well-being, to name several.

Unfortunately, the majority of these qualities were of no use to her whatsoever.

She often found herself wishing for her mother's patience, Will's devotion, her father's kind serenity, Elizabeth's acceptance, or Jack's daring and strength. Alas… her requests were rarely answered and almost never put to good use when they were. Finally, after much deliberation and frustration, she finally resolved to put to good use the traits she _did _possess—however useless she considered them to be—and thus dawned the age of relative inner contentment in the mind of Sophia Lucita Cuthburt Norrington.

Yet despite her lack of confidence, Sophia knew that she could do one thing consistently and without error.

Sophia, if nothing else, was an extremely good listener.

-

With a blank stare and even blanker voice, Jack told her his story.

He told her of the five years since her departure, how he had thrown himself into his calling, his way of life. Raid after raid, capture after capture, sacking after sacking, _The Black Pearl_ was on the move constantly. He'd known that every member of his crew had grown wary of his extraordinary drive and his fanatical commitment to the pirating trade.

"Why?" Sophia asked him. "Why did you do this?"

Jack looked at her with haunted eyes and an ironic smile on his face. "Why d'you think? I was tryin' t' forget you."

He could sense his crew drifting away from him even as they assured him of their loyalty. They thought him mad, he knew. They had not set foot on Caribbean soil for long past a year, and the men had developed a powerful, uncharacteristic longing for home. Jack recognized the signs of impending mutiny but ignored them. He simply didn't care.

And then Thandor, the sweet, small boy who had jumped into the roiling sea to save Sophia all those years ago when they were all so painfully young and blithe, had had enough.

They had been off the western coast of France at the time, their sights set on an Aquitaine port known for its riches. The day had been still and hot, the ocean smooth with only a faint whisper of a wind to keeping the sails full. The crew was agitated and they threw petty insults viciously amongst themselves for little reason. More than once Jack had been called from the cool darkness of his cabin to put a stop to a minor scuffle.

And then, squinting over the shimmering haze on the horizon, he saw the masts. Thirteen, he counted.

He must have been considered a very dangerous man if they thought that no less than thirteen ships could defeat him.

He had turned to stare at his crew, livid embers burning in his eyes, and saw that every one of their faces held shock, save for one. That one had stared back at him with disgusting victory, terrible and ignorant pride.

He told them to leave, and that they were all fools to think that their one ship could defeat thirteen of Britain's strongest naval vessels. Most left without much convincing needed, but Anamaria and Gibbs stared at him with horror written plainly across their features, and he had pushed them roughly into the last of the boats that were carrying the rest of his crew to safety. The land was less than two hundred yards away, and if he had followed them the soldiers would have killed them all.

They didn't care about the rest of his crew, only that they brought the dangerous and conniving Jack Sparrow back to England, alive or only just so.

He had fought because it seemed like the right thing to do. He watched the traitor with his hard face and eyes climb in to one of the British ships with very little expression.

"I didn' care what happened t' me, Sophie. It was… inhuman, almos'. I 'ad no concern for anyone… no feeling. I turned into a monster," he admitted, stopping his tale abruptly as he released the weight he had been feeling since his capture. "Tha' was what I was dreamin' about, when I woke. Before… Tha' reaction, the emptiness… It scared me so much. I had t' have a connection with somethin', I had t' _feel_."

"I knew that, I think. I knew that was how you were feeling." Sophia smiled sadly, successfully hiding her shocked horror as she saw a foreign wetness in his eyes. Jack did not cry. "Everything just… caught up with you, didn't it?"

Jack looked up at her, surprised that she understood so easily. That was exactly what had happened, he realized, she had just been able to put it into words for him. "Aye," he sighed, and with a low groan he pulled her into his lap, burying his face into the mass of hair that draped over her shoulder. They sat there for a long time.

"What would I do without you, Sophie?" Jack murmured, fisting her hair as he clung to her. "I hated you for a time, did you know tha'? I hated you for leavin'…"

Sophia sucked in a harsh breath. She knew this had been coming, that her stupidity would not be forgiven so easily. "And… and now?" She managed to choke out.

Jack smiled faintly against her shoulder. "Now we start over."

-

"Jack?" Sophia began hesitantly, knowing that the subject she was determined to discuss was a delicate one.

"Hmm?" He said, watching her as she dressed for the day.

"Um… Do you know… Do you know where _The Pearl_ is now?" She saw his fists clench in the bedclothes, tension deepening the faint lines on his face. He spoke after a long beat.

"The Royal King's Navy has 'er now… I don't know anythin' more than tha'."

Sophia let the conversation drift away to less disheartening subjects after that. It wasn't long before Elizabeth, with her inexhaustible energy, bounded into Sophia's cabin. Without knocking.

Sophia fought to conceal her amusement at the flustered girl's reaction to Jack's nakedness, covered only by a sheet spread across his lap. Jack, his face serious except for the underlying twinkle in his eye that betrayed how truly humorous he found the situation to be, stared at her calmly. "Oh! I-I'm sorry, Jack! I didn't…" Elizabeth began, coloring and turning her back on the pirate to raise a brow at her cousin. Sophia could see Jack grinning widely at her over the young girl's shoulder, his humor having obviously returned.

"It's about time you two made up, isn't it? I do declare, another day and I would have been forced to lock you both in the storage cabin and _made_ you come to a blasted agreement! Honestly, depressing the whole ship, you were…" Elizabeth muttered darkly as she bade them farewell with a discomfited wave and flounced out the door.

Sophia and Jack looked at one another and promptly burst out laughing.

"Oh, Jack, there's nothing like an embarrassed, headstrong girl to raise your spirits!" Sophia gasped, overjoyed that they were both laughing, really _laughing_, for the first time in ages.

-

It was not long until the tropical skyline of Port Royal began to take shape along the horizon. Sophia, breathing hard in the sultry humidity, spared a moment of interruption in her work on the ship to lean against the mast, resting her temple against the warm wood as she watched her hometown grow closer. She stared at the docks and houses that littered the shoreline until she closed her eyes as a kind of mental preparation before returning to society, where its rules and guidelines were continually imposed upon her. There would be no more dressing in men's clothing, she would no longer be treated as an equal along with all the other men, and she would don her petticoats and dresses and stay in the house to cook and clean as the rest of the women did. She let out a soft groan of frustration.

She stayed like that for longer than she should have, her eyes closed, leaning against the mast of _The Enchantments_ with a soft furrow between her eyebrows as she pondered her fate. It was only when she felt a familiar hand at her waist that she opened her eyes and returned to the world, halfway dismayed to find that they had crept closer to Port Royal during her brief rest. She turned to look at Jack's profile as he stood beside her, the set of his face determined.

She knew what it was costing him to surrender his life as a pirate, even if it wasn't a permanent decision. For now, as they had discussed, Jack would live with her in her small house in the outskirts of the town until they thought of "what to do next." Sophia had successfully kept herself from exploring that clever little phrase that they had concocted in their conversation. What _was_ to happen next?

Forcing her mind back to the present, Sophia's eyes searched Jack's face anxiously as she saw the stony resolve that so worried her. He would never be completely happy, she knew, until he could be back at sea with his beloved ship, but he was trying. He was trying for her and because he simply had nowhere else to go. His crew was scattered across the known world, this he had told her he was sure of, and he was a wanted man. Will and Sophia would be able to protect him in Port Royal. Sophia frowned as she thought of this; she knew he didn't like to be dependent on anyone.

"It'll be all right, Jack," Sophia assured him, wishing to combat the painful resignation in his eyes. "We'll think of something to do, that I promise you."

Jack smiled faintly at her, his eyes warming in an instant. "I know, tha', love."

Soon after Sophia excused herself from both Jack's presence and her chores on the ship to change into a dress, the irony of the sense that she was returning to her prison while taking Jack away from his not lost on her in the least.

-

"So… this is home," Sophia said, smiling in a vague sort of way as she enlisted the help of their drivers to take their belongings upstairs to the bedrooms. Elizabeth, wasting no time whatsoever, climbed the stairs to her room and began instructing the poor fellows where exactly her trunk was to be positioned in her room. Elizabeth, all those years ago when she had first arrived in Port Royal, had flatly refused to live with her aunt and uncle, forsaking tradition to remain with her cousin. Sophia hadn't minded at all.

"Ahh…" replied Jack, glancing about, before spying a chaise longue in the corner and throwing himself on the poor piece of furniture and making himself comfortable.

Sophia gave an unladylike snort. "And I had predicted that you would be uneasy in a house, rather than a ship. I see that I shouldn't have worried much."

Jack grinned. His confession of the events that had led to his imprisonment several nights ago had lightened his mood considerably; he was beginning to feel more like his former self.

"You don't have t' worry 'bout me, love. I'm very adaptable," he replied with a familiar half-smirk, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Oh, how witty of you," Sophia droned humorlessly, although she was secretly ecstatic to see Jack acting so… _normal_. Well, normal for him, rather. Sophia had already begun to step towards the kitchen when she heard the faintly melancholy sound of the ringing doorbell. Curious as to who could be calling when she had only just arrived, she swung the door open to find a middle-aged man in the red uniform of one of England's finest.

_Oh dear._

Thinking with remarkable speed, Sophia squeezed the door shut until only a foot's width of her body could be seen, thus hiding Jack, the fugitive, from view. She had most definitely not anticipated this, having expected at least several days to work out what their plans were concerning Jack's delicate situation.

Needless to say, the man looked at her rather strangely.

"Oh, hello! Um… Who are you?" Sophia said quickly, her voice seeming much higher than usual to her ears.

Other than a brief flash of annoyance in his eyes, the soldier stepped smoothly over her rudely abrupt question with an apology. "Forgive me, Mrs. Norrington,"—Sophia started here as she heard her name pass from his lips before she had introduced herself—"I am Commodore Henry Knoll, at your service, of course. I understand you were the wife of the former commodore, James Norrington?"

_Oh. Dear._

Sophia coughed loudly as she heard Jack scrambling behind her, up the stairs and out of sight. "Y-yes, I am. Was, rather," she replied, staring at this Commodore Knoll with something akin to shocked devastation plastered clearly on her face. He had a strange, clipped way of speaking that made her think unpleasantly of frigid metal.

"Wonderful, then I am at the correct location," he responded with a faint upturning of the lips that oddly failed to cause the rest of his face to move. "I thought that since we had never been introduced before this, now would be a good time." Sophia, remembering her manners at last, opened the door a bit wider and stuck out her hand with as much grace as she possessed. He took it within his own delivered a dry kiss to her knuckles.

"I am Sophia Norrington, although you seem to be aware of my name already," she retorted kindly with a peace offering of a smile. "Please, come in."

She hated to do it, she really did, but to leave him standing on her doorstep would be incredibly impolite. The sent a silent thanks to whoever happened to be listening that Jack had enough sense to escape upstairs while he still could.

"Well, you have quite a… reputation." He said the last word like it was something revolting as he stepped through the door and they made their way to the parlour.

Sophia's smile became quite fixed. "Please, sit. Would you like a cup of tea while you are here? We've only just arrived, but I'm sure I can find something suitable."

"Oh no," he clipped, "I'll only take up a moment of your time. I simply wanted you to know that if you need anything at all, you need only to ask. You live alone, am I correct?"

_Oh, bloody hell._

"With my cousin, Elizabeth." He seemed not to notice the tension in Sophia's shoulders and the way her fingers clutched at her skirts.

"Ah, yes. Well, I understand that it can be very… difficult to live on one's own, especially for someone such as yourself."

"A woman, you mean?" Sophia asked, her voice unintentionally cold.

Knoll glanced at her quickly, evaluating her tone. A wry smile glanced across his lips as he continued. "I see that some have misjudged you, Mrs. Norrington; you are as perceptive as any." He did not elaborate further, which confused and frustrated Sophia to no end,and instantly reverted to their previous topic of conversation. "You put it bluntly, madam, but yes. As I said, if you find you are in need of something, do not hesitate to ask."

_They're keeping watch over me._ _They think I'm a_ _threat, that I'll get into more trouble_.

Sophia smiled to herself at the thought. _You have no idea, dear sir_. "I won't forget, Commodore Knoll. Thank you kindly for the offer."

-

_"We came on the wind of the carnival."_

_- Chocolat, Joanne Harris_

-

**A/N**: Finally, you all are saying, she has updated. I apologize, again, profusely.

Another sort of update: Costa Rica is now officially my new favorite country in the world. Ever.

Thanks to everyone for stickin' with me. I know it's hard. The good news is, we are now formally to the really really interesting (at least in my view) part of this story. And no, it is most definitely not over.

I totally just realized that I have never put disclaimers up on this story, which is called being an idiot. Here goes:

**Standard disclaimers apply. I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean.**

I'm just so creative.

I love all you reviewers, you know I do. And now it's three in the morning so I think I'll go to bed.


	10. Accustomed to Your Face

Chapter: Accustomed to Your Face

-

_"That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect."_

_-- The Awakening, Kate Chopin_

-

"I very strongly dislike that man."

Jack smiled crookedly as Sophia sat beside him where he was stretched out languidly on her bed. Her expression was very drawn and tense and her shoulders sagged as if she was finally allowing herself to relax after a very long time of holding them ramrod straight. "Aye… 'Ee's a slimy git."

"You haven't yet seen him, Jack," Sophia mumbled, flopping back onto the bed with a harsh sigh and curling so that she lay on her side. She and the new Commodore Knoll had exchanged the various proper pleasantries, his questions becoming increasingly intrusive until Sophia was squirming in her seat and lying outright to his face in order to protect Jack's well-being. He possessed an unnerving manner of seeming to look right through a person with cold precision, and seemed to not care a lick about what he saw unless it concerned him and his position. Sophia knew, though, that her impassive demeanor and biting retorts—cloaked with an impressive veil of uncommon courtesy and respect, of course—had unsettled him at least somewhat by the look of disguised shock in his icily blue eyes. He had expected her to roll over and submit to his interrogation masquerading as a welcome, she was sure, and had been sorely disappointed by what he found in the infamous Sophia Norrington. She, as anyone who knew her closely was well aware of, was not the type to succumb that easily.

Jack broke her from her reverie with a scornful declaration of "Dinn't bloody need to!" as both a method to lighten the mood and ease Sophia's anxiety.

Sophia edged closer to him, fitting her body into his with accomplished ease and resting her head on his chest. Her eyes shut, she replied faintly, "Yes, well, with luck we'll not have to endure another visit from the Commodore for quite some time." She could feel herself beginning to grow rather weary, the constant rise and fall of Jack's chest and the steady muted thump of his heart lulling her into a state of delectable drowsiness.

Jack, the fingers of one hand pulling her long mass of black hair from its loose chignon, toyed casually with the idea of having a midday nap. He was utterly content at present, but knew from extensive past experience that he would not remain so for long. He gave himself several weeks before he began to yearn once again for the sea, and then he didn't know what would happen.

He could not stand the thought of leaving her.

Sophia broke him from his reverie with a surprised declaration of "I've just thought of something, darling pirate."

"Aye?"

"We've never…" she paused, her face flushing with foolish embarrassment, "…never—oh, stop laughing, you cheeky thing! We've never made love on dry land! How strange. I must admit I expect a marginal decrease in performance on your part, actually… without the ocean's natural rocking to help you along, you know," Sophia taunted, grinning unabashedly as indignation appeared instantly across Jack's face, just as she had predicted.

"Oy, tha's a right insult, tha' is! I sup'ose I'll 'ave to prove you wrong, then," he retorted determinedly as Sophia watched him with wide, innocent eyes, shrugging indifferently.

With a feral growl, Jack grasped Sophia around the waist and flipped her onto her back, utilizing the strength that had been steadily returning to his body ever since his rescue with satisfying effects. Sophia shrieked as Jack made quick work of her laces with practiced efficiency, rendering her nude and helpless in a matter of seconds.

"You devil!" She exclaimed, chortling despite her misleading shouts.

He grinned rather like the creature that Sophia so aptly named him and soon set to work rectifying her blasphemous assumption. And Sophia was indeed proved wrong.

-

In the morning Sophia went to visit her mother.

Jack watched with a quirk of humor on his lips as the exasperated woman cursed quietly under her breath while she readied herself for the day. She was a veritable blur of motion, searching elbow-deep in her modest closet for the proper garment one moment and pinning her hair up into a somewhat harsh chignon the next. Jack frowned as Sophia fished out a dusty corset from her trunk with a cough. The Sophia he knew did _not_ wear corsets unless a life-or-death situation was involved, as with his rescue several months before.

Raising a brow, he surmised that it would not be too out of place to ask a question, preparing to backtrack quickly if her mood was truly as foul as it appeared. "You're sure you don' want me t' come along, love?"

Sophia whirled about, her eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid! My mother would drop dead of shock! She _despises_ anything out of the ordinary. It frightens her," she snapped, beating the stiff corset against the side of the trunk several times. A cloud of dust permeated the air in the room. "She needs to be weaned into the idea that I am now living with a man who is not my husband and, not to mention, a _convicted criminal_!" she finished sourly, if not a bit hysterically, as if she blamed him for her misfortune.

Jack's lips twitched upwards.

Sophia glared at him. "It's not amusing at all, Jack! This woman is disgustingly close-minded! Of course I love her—she _is_ my mother—but sometimes…" Sophia trailed off threateningly, a gleam of malice encroaching upon the usual amiable warmth of her eyes. She finally let loose a tremendous sigh, seeming to have resigned to her fate at last, and her expression softened. "I'm sorry, Jack. My mother has always brought out the worst in me, I'm afraid. No doubt you'll understand soon—she'll want to meet you after I've told her about our…situation."

Jack steepled his fingers and gazed at her pensively, the old spark dancing delightedly in the near-blackness of his eyes. "I can 'ardly wait."

Sophia cracked a faint smile. "She's all right sometimes, I suppose. Naturally I'm a bit biased, being her daughter. Time will tell, m'love, whether you will be able to charm the frozen old arse off of Chelsea Cuthburt."

Jack let out a snort of laughter, rising from his reclining position on the bed to wrap his beloved woman in his arms and kiss her soundly on the lips in reassurance. "You've faced blood-thirsty pirates an' madmen an' female-starved sailors… I think you can survive this."

"You've never met my mother. Now help me with this bloody corset."

-

"Hello, mother! I've missed you so!" Sophia crowed, returning the embrace of the thin woman before her. She kissed her mother on both cheeks, marveling once again how much the older woman had aged in the past five or so years. Sophia's "kidnapping" had put a great strain on both of her parents, and it was beginning to show. Both Cuthburts had graying hair and, especially her mother, the weak appearance of those who had grown old in far to short an amount of time.

Chelsea Cuthburt smiled faintly at her daughter, cupping her smooth cheeks between her veined hands. "You look absolutely wonderful, Sophia! So happy! It's fantastic to see that you are finally recovering from that dreadful business with the pirates. Five years! We were beginning to think you would never get over it!" She declared, her voice annoyingly oblivious, at least to Sophia's ears.

"Yes, well…" Sophia trailed away awkwardly, only to be interrupted by Chelsea yet again.

"And you've brought Mr. Turner and Elizabeth with you, as well! How lovely!" The older woman said, genuinely thrilled. Sophia had indeed brought Will along because (a) she needed a large amount of emotional support to endure the inevitable interrogation of her mother and (b) her parents simply adored him. Elizabeth was obvious, seeing as Sophia's parents were her aunt and uncle, respectively.

"Hello, Lady Cuthburt, Sir…" Will greeted them politely, kissing Sophia's mother's hand and nodding to her father while shaking his hand firmly.

Elizabeth was not quite so proper in her salutation. "Hello, Aunt Chelsea, Uncle Esteban! It's so nice to see you!" The girl chorused, embracing both her elders and kissing their cheeks exuberantly.

Sophia now caught sight of her father, standing tall and dark behind the flustered figure of Chelsea, and smiled widely. "Papa!" She had never quite grown out of using the childish name for her father, and he had never corrected her. Sophia threw herself into the arms of the one man in the world she loved just as much as Jack, nearly crying with joy as she almost bowled Esteban Cuthburt over.

In contrast to her relationship with Chelsea, Sophia had always felt that she shared a strong bond with her father. He had filled up her childhood with stories of his adventures and lessons in his native language, Spanish, which Sophia could understand but not speak, unfortunately, as the skill had diminished over time. She had been quite fluent in her youth, conversing freely with Esteban over the dinner table about his travels and experiences, much to her mother's chagrin. Sophia truly loved her father.

"Hello, _querida_. How have you been?"

Sophia squeezed her arms around her father's thin but comforting shoulders. "_Buenisimo_. Oh, you've no idea… I've been wonderful! I missed you so, _Papá_!"

Esteban Cuthburt smiled fondly at his daughter as she finally loosened her hold on him and looked at her face clearly for the first time since her return, pleasantly surprised by what he saw. Gone was the pale, withdrawn woman of the past five years, and in her place was the vibrant Sophia of old, her face flushed and eyes sparkling with the constant joys of living. She even looked to be gaining back some of the weight she had lost that caused her to look sickly and far too bony for her petite frame. Esteban smiled. "_Pareces hermosa, hija._"

Sophia smiled at the complement, as those from her father were so rare that receiving one was far better than any material gift he could have given her.

Chelsea, uncomfortable with the Spanish dialogue as she spoke not a word of the language herself, invited them into the parlour where tea and biscuits were waiting for them.

Sophia sipped her tea as she sat between Will and Elizabeth and waited to be tortured.

"So, Elizabeth, how is living with our lovely daughter suiting you?" questioned Chelsea primly, her face politely open and attentive.

_Here we go…_

Lady Cuthburt had never approved of Elizabeth's decision to live with Sophia (the idea was far too outlandish for her taste). Two unmarried women living together suggested abnormality and would "set the neighbors whispering," apparently. Elizabeth, bless her heart, had paid no heed to her aunt's warnings and flounced off to live with Sophia, despite whatever gossip it might spawn. Evidently Sophia's mother had not given up hope that her niece would come to her senses and come to live with the proper family. Sophia cautioned a glance at both Elizabeth and her father. Esteban was gazing at her with knowing and obvious humor and his eyes seemed say "Brace yourself, _querida_," while Elizabeth narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly as she responded.

"We are enjoying ourselves immensely, Aunt Chelsea. Nothing is ever boring whilst Sophia is around," Elizabeth asserted, winking very quickly at her cousin. Will, Sophia noticed, was hiding his grin behind a biscuit. She glared at him in response to his apparent amusement at her discomfort.

"I'm sure," Chelsea said softly, her eyes straying to Sophia. "And has our daughter decided to grace us with the knowledge of _why_ she suddenly decided to sail off to London at the spur of the moment?"

Sophia coughed, nearly choking on her tea. Daintily, she set the teacup down on the table before them with scarcely a rattle and, having regained her composure, tilted her head regally at her mother. "I'm afraid the tea was hotter than I expected," she explained, ignoring Will's own cough as he attempted to hide his laughter. "If you'll remember, mother, I sent you a letter explaining everything: I was called as a witness for the trail of a pirate I met on one of my… adventures." This was, in fact, the excuse she had made to her parents. She knew that it was a poor one, and that with even some half-hearted questioning they could discover that no such trial had taken place.

"Yes, well, I must have forgotten."

_Horseshit, mother._

Sophia looked in anticipation at her father. _Save me._

Esteban jumped minutely as if he had not been paying attention—which Sophia was sure was the case, considering his tendency to trail off even in the midst of conversations—and sent a playfully reproving glare at his daughter. After brief contemplation he spoke with infinitely rare eloquence. "Elizabeth! The harpsichord! Going well?"

And _this_ was her savior from the intrusive woman that was her mother.

Elizabeth smiled wryly. "Very well, thank you. I'm studying a rather difficult piece now, by Handel, if I remember correctly…" She gave up as the conversation fell stagnant, looking to Sophia imploringly.

"Sophia," continued Chelsea, much to Sophia's exasperation, "I have heard rumors that you are holding a guest in your home?"

Both Elizabeth and Will were suddenly very interested in their cups of tea, which they stirred vigorously as Sophia answered with a stiffly wan nod.

The older woman's gaze hardened considerably, although her tone remained light. Sophia swallowed. She had expected this, of course, but now that the time to explain her rather… eccentric circumstances to her mother had come, she found her nerve failing. "How lovely! We must meet this enigma! The whole town's heard of it, my dear!" Chelsea exclaimed, sitting very forward in her seat as if ready to pounce on her daughter lest she say something that anyone would disprove of.

_I'm sure they have._ Sophia made a mental note to brutally slaughter the unfortunate soul who had let loose the knowledge that she had a "houseguest," as her mother so delicately put it. No doubt he or she had seen them unloading from _The Enchantments_ and ran to the nearest enjoyer of gossip to speculate.

"Well, you will meet…him at some point, I'm sure," Sophia choked out after a moment's thought, surprised at how normal her voice sounded. Will was not smiling anymore, and gazed at her with a look akin to pity. Elizabeth stared stonily at Chelsea, a not-uncommon fire sparking in her eyes. Esteban was hiding his shock well, the set of his mouth and jaw indicating to Sophia his concern for her.

Chelsea Cuthburt's eyebrows shot up past her hairline.

"H-Him?" She voiced breathily. Sophia hoped she wouldn't faint.

She felt some of her old strength returning. She was not a child anymore and how she lived her life was most definitely _not_ her mother's decision. "Yes, _him_. I met him in London, and he will be staying with me for as long as he sees fit. His name is Captain Jack Haverling, and I suggest you get accustomed to the idea that he is living with me," she explained smoothly, the lie slipping off her tongue as easily as if she had been reading it from a page. Sophia heard Elizabeth snort as she recognized the name that Sophia had used when introducing Jack to _her_ those many years ago in Port Ayuda.

Chelsea stared wide-eyed at her daughter, her jaw hanging open. Sophia waited patiently for her mother to gather her wits.

Esteban, in contrast to his wife, was taking the news rather well. He seemed to be looking back and forth between the three guests perplexedly, but at least he looked as if he was still in possession of all his mental abilities. Sophia managed to shoot him a small, reassuring smile. _It's all right, Papa. I love him_.

"And you…you and this…this Captain Haverling a-are…" Chelsea stammered, flushing from the roots of her hair down to the tops of her bosom. Esteban laid a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder.

"Yes." Sophia answered her before she could finish her rather embarrassing question. "We are."

Will was blushing as well by now, while Elizabeth gazed intently at the ceiling. Chelsea sputtered indignantly, not that Sophia could blame her. Her sweet, victim of a daughter had suddenly become one of _those_ women, who consorted with unmarried men and had children out of wedlock.

Esteban was the eventual savior. Sophia could have kissed him. "Well!" He nearly shouted, clapping his large hands together and causing his wife to nearly fall out of her chair. "More tea, anyone?"

-

"Sophia, this is shameful! You are desecrating the name of your family! Of me! It's…It's _vile_ and unchristian!"

Chelsea had finally managed to get her daughter alone. Somewhere in the midst of the polite conversation following Sophia's admittance, the lady of the house had managed to draw her into one of the spare bedrooms and lock the door behind them.

Sophia sighed, staring at her mother coolly. "I was never one for church and prayers, mother. You know that," she responded in a deceptively light tone.

"Oh, stop it, Sophia! This is no laughing matter! You will be shunned! No one will want to touch you!" Chelsea continued her ranting, steadily climbing towards hysteria.

"Nonsense. I'm sure I shall be the most popular woman in town until they all manage to catch a glimpse of my…guest. _Then_ they will shun me."

"I cannot believe you are joking at a time like this. I cannot believe…"

Chelsea's prim and modest appearance had flown out the window along with her unruffled social skills. She was red in the face, her hair askew, arms flailing as she chastised her offspring. Suddenly her expression changed, and she promptly began to weep.

"I've failed as a mother! I taught you to be…to be promiscuous! Ungodly! Oh heavens, Sophia, I've failed you!" She cried, covering her face with her hands and curving into herself as trying to protect her fragile body from arctic winds.

"Don't be ridiculous, mother," Sophia assured, stroking back Chelsea's hair as she wept in what she hoped resembled reassurance. "I made this decision on my own accord."

Chelsea looked up, tears shining in her glittering blue eyes. "But how can you be sure that he isn't taking advantage of you, Sophia? How can you know what sort of man he truly is?"

Sophia smiled faintly. "Because we love one another, and I know him better than I know anyone else in the world."

"Well then marry him!"

"He's not that sort of man, mother."

-

Sophia did not speak with her father until she was about to leave. She embraced his comforting form fully, grateful for his calm acceptance of her choice of lifestyle. He held her close to him and whispered in her ear, "It's not Haverling, is it? It's that Sparrow fellow, the one who kidnapped you."

Sophia smiled into his shoulder. "He only kidnapped me the first time, _Papá_. And yes, it is."

"Do you love him?"

"So much… I love him so much."

"Good." And then he let her go.

-

Jack was waiting with a cross look on his face when they returned, ripping chunks out of a hunk of bread he'd nicked from the kitchen and stuffing the pieces into his mouth methodically as he flipped through a book from Sophia's bookshelf. It was a silly and repetitive story about a man searching for his father or some such tripe, but it kept him from going mad with boredom.

The door swung open—finally, he thought, they've been gone for hours—and Sophia stormed into the house, looking as if she were either very, very angry or about to faint. Jack guessed, glancing at her corseted figure and heaving bosoms, that it was a mixture of the two. Elizabeth followed her meekly, both eyebrows raised as she quickly climbed the stairs to her room. Before he could get one word out, Sophia flew at him and kissed him hard on the mouth, pressing her body tightly against his and crushing both the book and the bread between them. He dropped both objects in favor of wrapping his arms around her waist. Finally she withdrew and leaned back to look at his puzzled features.

"Wha' was the meaning o' that, love?" He asked her, his fingertips tracing idle paths up her spine.

"I had to know," she began, somewhat breathlessly, "that you were worth it." Pausing briefly, she let out a groan and dropped her forehead against his collarbone. "We are going to have a very rough road ahead of us, I'm afraid."

Jack rested his chin on the top of her head. "It went tha' badly with yer parents, then?"

Sophia inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of him and the vibration of his voice against her flesh. "Apparently the whole town's heard of my 'houseguest,' and my mother nearly dropped dead when I told her the nature of our relationship. She was going on about the defilement of the family name, or some similar drivel to that effect."

"Ahh…" Jack chose to leave his sentiments at that, wanting to keep her relaxed and aware that he was here, and that he would take in stride with her anything that happened to occur.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and Sophia jumped, her shoulders tensing immediately. "Oh, I hope it isn't that dreadful Knoll man," she groaned, stepping hesitantly towards the door while she motioned for Jack to remain hidden.

Opening the door, she was met with the sight of an adolescent messenger boy standing nervously on her doorstep. "I've an invitation here for a Mrs. Sophia Norrington," he recited, gazing at her curiously.

Jack, hearing that it wasn't anything that could potentially land him in trouble (at least he didn't think so), swaggered casually over to stand beside Sophia. She shot him a glare. "Yes? You are speaking to her."

"Would you prefer me to read it aloud, Mrs. Norrington?"

"I suppose," she answered, somewhat bewildered.

"_Mrs. Sophia Norrington, Miss Elizabeth Cuthburt, and their guest are cordially invited to partake in the annual Masquerade Ball to take place at the Ismay Manor on August the 17th, beginning promptly at seven o'clock in the evening." _The boy paused. "What response shall I relay to Lady Ismay? Will you be attending the ball?"

Sophia and Jack both responded immediately and simultaneously, she with a resounding "Absolutely not!" and he with a delighted "O' course!" They then turned to look at one another and proceeded to bicker over their respective decisions, leaving the poor boy bewildered on the doorstep until they came to their conclusion.

In the end, after Jack had pointed out that it would look rather suspicious if Sophia didn't accept an invitation to what was, apparently, the event of the year, they agreed to attend. After the severely shaken messenger left at a dead run, Sophia shut the door and stared at Jack in a manner that would have left lesser men shaking where they stood. "No _doubt_ you think it a _highly_ amusing escapade to attend this ball," she spat disgustedly, nearly snarling with contempt. Jack looked no less agitated as he pressed his lips tightly together to control his temper. He _needed_ this, needed something to keep his mind off of the impending boredom and subsequent return to the sea, and this ball had arisen at exactly the right time. He would never say this to Sophia, of course, lest he send her off worrying and filled with dread that he might leave her, but the thought was there, a constant malady, in his mind. Sophia brought him back to the present with her snappish continuation.

"I _know_ these women, Jack. They are bitter, spiteful creatures who like nothing more than to destroy a person with rumors and gossip. It's disgusting." Her voice was a bit softer, now, as she sighed with annoyance at the mere thought of her fellow townsfolk.

Jack brushed her fears and his aggravation aside with a cock-eyed grin. "If I know anyone who can 'andle 'em, love, it's you."

She gave him a dry smile and said nothing.

-

_"She had learned to be a woman for whom experience would always be a prison, and freedom would lie always beyond the horizon."_

_-- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert_

_-_

**Author's Note: **Ah, another chapter. Once again, it is very late and I still have to read sixty pages of _Crime and Punishment_ before I sleep, and school hasn't even begun yet!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's about twice as long as the previous ones, I think, and we get our first really good look at Sophia's parents and some of the conflicts that may be arising for her in the future. She will obviously be quite the scandal at this little shindig, which I am looking forward to because I love writing Sophia in awkward public situations because she tends to kick the shit out of everyone who tries to insult her. Fun fun.

**Spanish translations:**  
Querida: love, dear  
Buenisimo: Very good  
Pareces hermosa, hija: You look beautiful, daughter

Anyway, thanks to all of the reviewers: Sunshinejedi, Terriah, MISSZ-SPARROW, Anaknusan, AJ-Sparrow, xJacksJessx, Iffy, doctress, RunawayPirate, Lady Anarane, I heart coffee, Shimbles, CaptainMarySparrow, to name a few. Chapters will be coming out _probably_ a bit slower after this as school starts soon. So sorry, but I'm afraid getting good grades so I can go to college and get a good job so I can support myself for the rest of my life and not starve comes before writing fanfiction. I know, the shame.


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